











































<• 




Apologies For Love 


F. A. MYERS 

Author of “ Romance of a Letter etc. 



BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 
1909 


Copyright 1909 by F. A. MYERS 


All Rights Reserved 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 


t 


DEDICATION 

There is a devotion to one’s profession that is akin to 
genius. It is, at all events, a divinity that brings success. 
And success naturally commands attention and recog- 
nition. It is an evidence of the worth and force of the 
man. We all admire the one who achieves something, 
who does something for others, who is in harmony with 
his surroundings. In all games, the victor is the hero. 
And in the various affairs of life, the successful man is 
accorded something of the same place in general opinion 
as the victor in the stadium. Mr. Frank W. Cooley, 
Superintendent of the Public Schools of Evansville, 
Indiana, is gifted with devotion and divinity in his work 
and therefore wins success. He is clear in his methods, 
full of his profession to suggestiveness, indefatigable in his 
labors, strong in executive ability, gentlemanly in his atti- 
tude toward all. He has all the qualifications that con- 
stitute a practical and capable school Superintendent. No 
man has done a greater service for the schools of Evans- 
ville than has Mr. Cooley. This slight tribute is due 
him for his unvarying kindliness to the writer. 

F. A. M. 


May, 1909. 









Apologies For Love 

CHAPTER I 

D O you remain long in Paris, Miss 
Wadsworth?” Earl Nero Pensive 
inquired, as he seated himself beside 
her and her father in the box of the 
theatre. His eyes like beaming lights 
out of shadowless abysm were transfixed upon her as by 
magic force, and not without a calculating purpose. No one 
could predetermine the end of the influences begun by this 
initial stare upon so beautiful a young lady by such a man. 

“We leave ‘gay Paris,’ the scene of revolutions and 
Zola plots, in the early morning — do we not?” shrink- 
ingly turning to her father with a smile that possessed 
for him more than the veneer of social exactions. He 
simply nodded assent, a sparkle of mystic communication 
from his eyes falling on her as he inclined his head and 
glanced away for no known reason. 

The fact was not objectionable to him that English 
Earls paid court to his daughter, but in this day of penni- 
less counts, and what not, seeking American daughters 
for their millions, he was not accepting the polished gen- 
try on their own recommendation alone, — lavishness, fine 
dress, and wealthy manners. An open introduction in so 
public a place he did not regard as a sufficient passport to 
a self-respecting girl’s heart and hand. 

7 


8 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


The signal service code between daughter and father, 
Merrill Wadsworth, ex-United States Senator, was sim- 
ple and easy to read. She flashed back the answer: “I’m 
not afraid of bronze lions in the way.” The Earl was 
innocent of the establishment of any communication be- 
tween these two Americans. He was intent on making 
the most of the meeting. 

“I’m truly sorry that you go so soon,” he returned, 
turning his glittering, gray, full eyes upon Mr. Wads- 
worth, which politeness required as an accompaniment of 
the language of his response. 

“Our time-limit for our hasty trip to the continent 
is up,” observed the ex-United States Senator, in natural 
business tone, seeing that his daughter expected him to 
make answer. 

The play went on. The electric lights cast a greenish 
tint over the crowded audience. The footlights glared 
up into the face of a marvelously beautiful woman, who 
for a brief moment was outrivaling the mockingbird. But 
beneath the musical vocalization there was a submerged 
minor note that seemed to hurl defiance at the audience, 
— if not directly at the box where the Wadsworths were 
seated. Though attention was divided between the per- 
formance and the attentive Earl, Miss Mina Wadsworth 
nevertheless caught the minor chord upon the sensitive 
sounding board of her very responsive nature. She had 
no doubt of it. It affected her. 

Earl Nero Pensive was dressed quite in the mode. 
His manners were perfect. Indeed he was a handsome 
man, splendid physique, — something like Meredith’s Ego- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


9 


ist or Fielding’s Tom Jones, — and possessed a keen sense 
that promptly penetrated human motives. 

At one sweep of his glance he caught the simplex mun- 
ditiis of her dress but at the same time its costly character 
and its up-to-dateness. There was no question about its 
modest modernity and its perfect adaptiveness. It spoke 
the worth of the girl. 

“Ever since your arrival in Europe I have endeavored 
to meet you,” said Earl Pensive after his cursory sur- 
vey, in limpid, natural language, a half concealed gurgle 
of bonhommie in his modulated musical tone. It was 
designed to be flattery, but it was “too silly” to think he 
had traced her through the press telegrams in all her 
evagations with her distinguished father about Europe. 
That sort of chaff must be used to catch birds of differ- 
ent plumage. He added: “And now in the very last 
minute, — just my luck.” 

“Truly unfortunate,” she returned. Did she mean for 
her or for him? He could not determine. 

And she could not know the inner exclamation of 
thankfulness he offered his “lucky star” that she was 
returning home so soon, while at the same time he was 
expressing his regrets to her, implied in his last remark. 
He had a past, and he was happy she was departing from 
the scene of that unworthy part of his existence. 

“Who is the very lovely young songstress?” Miss 
Wadsworth asked after a short stupid pause. But it was 
an honest inquiry, and not simply the semblance of talk. 
She knew her name but no more. 

“Clarissa Harlow, a star from your great country so 
productive of the marvelous,” he returned like one striv- 
ing to express something jaunty. 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“She wears lovely costumes and diamonds.” To be 
sure she would say that. 

“Paris is in a furore, tout-a-fait, over her beauty and 
singing.” 

“She’s a model beauty.” 

“A perfect American type.” 

Mina read beneath the surface that the Earl was not 
en rapport wuth the charming young actress. However, 
this might be due to nationality. The Earl was an easy- 
going, blase Englishman instead of an enthusiastic 
Frenchy. 

There was much more talk, but at the end of the 
play these two people had not progressed very far even in 
a formal relationship. No clinging regrets had reached 
the stage of frame and glass upon the walls of their mem- 
ories. It seemed to be a passing affair that was ended in 
its very beginning. 

When the asbestos curtain dropped, her father took 
her arm and moved toward the nearest street opening. 
Earl Nero Pensive felt himself denied an opportunity 
to speak more definitely to her. He was not willing to 
let the curtain fall upon the drama. He had definite in- 
formation of the exceeding great wealth of her father. 
He followed to the door. There he said, in a manner 
that did not restrict his speech to either one, seeking 
courtesies : 

“I shall be in America soon, taken there by some rail- 
road and other investments.” There was no effort to 
disguise his motive. His eyes, upon a dead-level of in- 
difference, suggested nothing. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


n 


She knew what courtesy demanded. “Will you have 
leisure to call upon us while there?” 

He made an elaborate bow, in the best form of an 
Earl, as they parted. 

He had manoeuvered long to secure this interview with 
this superior American girl, a girl more stately than 
formal, more wise than emotional, more sane than cal- 
culating, more true than fanciful, more lovely than de- 
signing, more frank than skillful. But to him the beauty 
of her character appealed less than her moral dollars — a 
new character given to filthy lucre in this commercial age 
of human activity. He was sane upon the subject of 
his pressing need of the mercantile medium of exchange, 
but he could not put into execution an immediate, effective 
method of recoup, — unless, unless, by a coup d’amour. For 
of course love is potent but money is omnipotent. His 
manner of life had not multiplied his bank notes in any 
very approved way. His “talent” had not been added to 
by skillful management. To him life was better em- 
ployed spending than earning. Trite but true, “non dis- 
putandum de gustibus.” His unqualified life had not 
run the gamut of amusements to the extent that money 
had no interest for him. On the contrary his dual life 
demanded almost unlimited credit at the bank, and at 
present he had no funds upon which to draw, unless his 
handsome person should prove a splendid investment in 
American beauty with infinite resources behind it. He 
was known as the “Earl” Nero Pensive. And the title 
might be capital for the foolish American women seeking 
empty titles and paying extortionate prices for them. 

Abroad, it was a very practical and serviceable thing 


12 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


to do, — to allow himself to be taken for his brother, Lord 
Elmdale, who was honored with a parliamentary seat in 
the House. No one could know the difference, and it 
took nothing from his brother and added very much to 
his own bankrupt credit. A roue certainly had no need 
of fanciful scruples, such as would deny him pleasure and 
gold, and it was criminal to have a conscience or be hamp- 
ered by sentimental love. 

I will have her, come what may, cost what may, act 
as she may,” he resolved to himself. The bright, beauti- 
ful young singer, Clarissa Harlow, was with him in their 
automobile. She wondered why he maintained such 
bungling, sullen silence. At length she asked: 

“Has your supply of smiles and good temper run out, 
— you the man of exhaustless ego. You seem like the 
gloomy end of nothing mingled with a black chunk of 
night and stirred with Pluto’s crook.” 

“Few things, I confess with due composure, are better 
than a jest on your lips.” And he slunk deeper within 
himself, not to invoice his moral assets, or to invent a 
syllogism against the purity advocates’ doctrine, or to 
brood because it is pleasurable to be moody and selfish, 
but to conceal the embryonic scheme then lying deep 
within like a stone in a muddy river. 

As they moodily flashed by the Vendome hotel, the 
Earl saw the ex-Senator and Mina ascend the broad 
marble steps, beneath the intense flaring electric light. 
The glimpse intensified his embryonic scheme. 

In the atrium, alluding to Nero Pensive’s first steady 
search into her eyes, she asked her father: 

“Were those looks advances?” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


13 


“Estimated in dollars and cents — yes, Mina,” he smiled 
to her. 

“Well,” she flouted with a shrug, a merry leer in the 
spacious depths of her very brown eyes, “well, the market 
value of the stock is — O it’s a drug on the market, a very 
much watered stock, and so to be sure paying small or no 
dividends.” 

“I do not consider much of the British aristocracy very 
profitable investment just at present,” Mr. Wadsworth 
said; “but of course I speak in bated breath — to you, 
Mina.” The confidence was sure, secure. 

“I understand. A former United States Senator — . 
But, all in all, how did he strike you?” She had no idea 
or motive to conceal from her father, and looked as frank 
as her question signified. A smile took off the rough 
edge of directness. 

Perfect exterior, — oiled like a sham tongue, polished 
like a court favorite, graced with all social diplomacy, 
bold where self-interests demand courage. I know not 
this man ; but in general titles destroy incentives to man- 
liness and make courtliness superior to character.” 

“Not to be critical or serious, nor to be in a laughing 
mood — 


“ ‘If there’s a hole in a’ your coats, 

I rede you tent it.’ 

However, I may never be called on — probably never 
persuaded — to pass my opinion of a man when he is at a 
low ebb, — that’s my view of him.” 

“A product of hereditary aristocracy — a fate that 


H 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


trammels,” said Mr. Wadsworth, smiling archly at her 
conscious humor. 

“Have we said what we wanted to say about him — any- 
thing direct about him?” she ashed. 

“If not, still we have more conclusive opinions about 
this specimen of titular genus homo.” 

As he parted from her at her room-door for the night: 

“Up at six for Calais.” 

“Up at six for Calais,” she echoed, but in no manner 
the imitation of his rich contrabasso. 


CHAPTER II 


66 


E 


VER since I first laid my eyes on you 
I have been your eternal admirer — 
worshiper.” 

“You have not been discreet and 
measured in selecting your idol,” and 
Mina cast her deep, penetrating, calculating brown eyes 
on him in a critically searching glance. 

Earl Nero Pensive was too passive, and leaned back 
too far in the rear seat of the touring car, and posed too 
comprehendingly to convince and convict her. She re- 
garded every act and word as an expxression of the soul, 
and words, false or true, bare evidence of the real ego 
within. She interpreted the truth of words by the sub- 
liminal acts accompanying them. A glance sometimes 
reveals a whole critical chapter in the psychology of a 
soul. What Mina saw, rather indifference than active 
mental state, was not convincing of his sincerity. She 
saw what became a basis for every future judgment of 
him. It was a latent, lurking smile, which she inter- 
preted, rightly or wrongly, as a flattering approval of 
himself over her, a conscious sense of their inequality. 
It seemed to declare that it could not be otherwise, for 
he was of English blue blood while she was of the com- 
mon herd — titleless. But not brainless therefore, Mina 
argued to herself. And the difference would always re- 


main. 


15 


i6 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Men worship true and false gods — none the less wor- 
ship because a false good,” he responded to her banter. 
He impulsively whirled his half-smoked cigar away, and 
the sparks flew where it fell and rebounded as sparks from 
a bomb painted on canvass. 

“You worship a false god?” she queried, half imitating 
the indifference he seemed to act, — so contrary to his lip 
professions. 

A heavy lurch of the machine over a culvert jostled 
both considerably, but the motorneer in goggles did not 
alter his face a shadow to the right or left, — but straight 
on — on. Their swift flight along the highway on this 
sweet May day in 1907 had a moral parallel in the swift 
flood of years along the race course of life of which St. 
Paul speaks. They were on the main-traveled road from 
Richmond, Virginia, to Walpole, the beautiful country 
town, adjacent to which ex-Senator Merriel Wadsworth 
had a noble country residence, which they named Acadie. 
This charming country seat was about one hour by auto 
from Richmond. It was in the heart of his greatest busi- 
ness interests. 

Earl Nero Pensive was availing himself of the invi- 
tation given in Paris. But at the time the ex-Senator 
was absent from his country residence on matters political. 

“It is very, very pleasant to confide in a god, even 
though a false one,” said Nero in answer to her observa- 
tion that he worshiped a false god. 

“That, however, doesn’t establish anything, for the 
credit or honor or worth of the false god,” she argued 
with a modesty that disarmed the opponent of all acerbity. 
No, it was not a designing attitude of mind. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


i7 


“We generally love truly what we worship truly.” 

“No doubt,” she assented so readily as to excite a 
wonder. In fact her cunning meaning was not lost on 
him. He glanced up quickly. And the motive prompting 
his quick, uncalculated glance was detected by her. It 
annoyed him to know that he was surprised into a dis- 
closure of his motive — any motive, for that matter. For 
an instant he reprobated himself for his undiplomatic 
glance. He was in too excellent favor with himself to 
remain long at loggerheads with himself. 

“You will permit me, even in the enforced absence of 
your father, to say to you that it would be the proudest 
moment of my life to call you wife — my wife — my un- 
paralleled wife — and present you to my family as my 
wife.” This was intolerably cool and calculating. 

“No titled blood runs in my veins, not a drop, proud 
to say, though I do claim to belong to the F. F. V. And 
I can not harmonize the fact that I am titleless with your 
statement of pride in a titleless wife.” 

He observed that she did not affect surprise, suffuse 
her face with angel blushes, beg for time to consider, and 
all that, and he was not certain how far she was laugh- 
ing at him, or leading him on to see how foolish he could 
be, and how far below the surface she had descended into 
his miasmic nature. But he knew the force of persistent 
courtly blarney, and assured himself that by steadfast- 
ness in his seeming sincerity he could deceive her — de- 
ceive even the very elect. 

“Do not speculate on that fact, but on the other, that 
I am proposing to you now and laying my all at your feet, 
— titles, family prestige, wealth, and all I have and am. 


i8 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


What more can I do to convince you of my great and 
abundant love for you!” 

He leaned forward and pretended to zeal that was 
artificial and to pour out his real soul into her right ear. 

“Don’t try.” 

“Is it unpleasant?” 

“It may be, for all you know. At any rate it’s all 
Greek to me, and you’ll have to translate into my vernac- 
ular tongue.” 

“How do you mean that?” 

“And do you ask for an exegesis of what is so simple? 
Then what about your Hellenic phrases pertaining to a 
life contract? Or is it a contract existing only during 
good behavior on the feminine side and convenience on 
the masculine side?” 

“You know our English marriage laws?” 

“Know better our own state marriage laws.” 

He was not satisfied with her keen flippancy. It 
smacked of a mental joust in which he felt she had un- 
horsed him. 

“Then — I assume from your laughing humor that you 
do not deny my appeal for your heart and hand.” He 
was quite too tritely formal to woo and win. 

“I have not been asked for a categorical, Carlylean, 
everlasting yea or nay.” 

“What answer do you give me?” 

“I do hope now you are not going to have me repeat 
myself, and restate what I have been answering you all 
along:” It was plainly a mock plea. 

“I am very much in earnest.” 

“I do not deny it — do not doubt it — do not want to.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


i9 


“ ‘Was ever woman in this humor wooed.’ 

Was ever woman in this humor won?’ ” 

“Yes, by a Richard. But not by tactless humor was 
she won, I can assure you, Mr. Pensive. A Romeo 
knows better how to woo and win than a Jacques. Even 
the black Moor, who had done something worth relating, 
found a Desdemona to hear his stories and sigh for his 
woes.” 

He was not impeached from his selfcenter by this 
thrust direct. The smile on her rubric lips, lips that bore 
a message in themselves not of words, was faint — not 
feint, — and it would rub out under other conditions. At 
the same moment she was struggling with invisible 
nothings — conjectures about his nature, the gift of God, 
and not the man-made part of his ego. 

“Those cases you cite are cases of love myopia.” 

She detected a submerged sneer in his words. 

“I can’t pretend to a knowledge of love therapeutics, 
and can’t therefore distinguish between love myopia and 
love strabismus; but I think I can know love with and 
without the fancy touches of imagination and the impres- 
sionist daubs.” 

He turned a furtive eye on her, though pretending to 
glance beyond her at a fine farm house they w^ere flashing 
by. She was glad the automobile veil mottled her face 
and concealed a bit of half inconsistency she knew was in 
her large eyes, eyes that spoke and commanded and cap- 
tured. By a dual process of mind she was saying at the 
moment to her own secret self, the self that sat on the 
throne within as judge infallible of all things — the very 

2 


20 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Supreme Self: “Sir, because you are proud and over- 
bearing doesn’t fix you perforce as correct; it only estab- 
lishes the other fellow’s reading of you. I want to find, 
sir, the real, true, genuine John in you.” 

He smartly responded : 

“Love is madness, if Nordau and Lombroso have any 
significance in their utterances.” 

Perhaps he did not know what is said in Horace, Satire 
third, book two, or he would have mentioned Horace 
also. 

“How are you on cold-storage love?” she broke in and 
away with a twitter in her vocalization. He felt the 
piquancy and intentional inappositeness of the remark. 
It was like a frozen guinea down his back. 

“A little of it would do me,” he answered numbly, 
scarcely attentive to the constructive purport of his words. 
“It’s an ice-cream affair, sweet ice, as it were.” 

“Ah!” 

What non-translatable meaning she could compress 
into the manner of her utterance of this word! He felt 
it, roue as he was, like a veritable blow upon his conscious 
being. This girl seemed slipping away from him, and es- 
caping to the heights where he could not go. 

The motor car swung the corner at a speed that 
threatened to upset and precipitate an undesirable climax, 
but the expert chauffeur kept steadily on — on. Both 
seemed unconscious of their going, just as one does down 
the journey of life, for they were not observing the beauti- 
ful, burgeoning scenery along the swift flight. 

A thought from Longfellow’s “Endymion” crossed the 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


21 


clear horizon of her mind, seemingly like the promise of 
a bow in the sky: 

“Like Dian’s kiss, unasked, unsought, 

Love gives itself, but is not bought; 

Nor voice, nor sound betrays 
Its deep, impassioned gaze.” 

He said to her “ah:” 

“There is no cold-storage love — all a figure of speech 
and meaningless. To be frank, there is in these progres- 
sive times little sentimental love cultivated among our 
grown men and women. We recognize that sentimental 
love belongs primarily to school children, and that grown- 
ups have nothing to do with it.” 

“That certainly is quite, quite clear, considering all 
that we, grown-ups, have just been saying. I still have 
faith in the intoxication of sweet, first, young love — that 
sweet bewilderment, all of heaven, best of all. I confess 
I take at their worth the fragments of a feast after the 
guests have gone and the stains of the debauch still mar 
the table linen. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
was a little particular and exacted the best first fruits. 
The divine Cupid is no less scrupulous as to offerings of 
refuse and blemished things. They must be perfect.” 

“I have just reached the strong, mature period of life, 
and all I am and all I have I freely lay on the altar as a 
sacrifice to the God Cupid you worship. I will be a 
Jacob and serve fourteen years for Rebecca.” 

He felt the soft satisfaction of having spoken along the 
line of her own thoughts. In very truth Mina was with- 


22 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


out fleck or flaw in her nature — a perfectly lovely crea- 
ture, perfect as Eve. He was absolutely satisfied of this. 
He was thirty — nothing below that. She was twenty — 
nothing over that. 

“I’m heart whole and fancy free,” was her daring, de- 
fying retort. Her first impulse was to say that a state 
inspector would be necessary to examine his offering to 
determine its sanitary condition; but this seemed too flat 
and she rejected it. 

“And will you be mine — mine — mine — ” 

“Well!” 

“My wife?” 

“Does that mean, under your English laws, a life 
partner of yours?” Her calmness equaled his audacity and 
made him dislike it for its critical inference. 

“Everything of mine!” 

“That’s a different proposition from my statement of 
being heart whole and fancy free, — which by the by is 
perfectly true.” 

He dropped her hand and listlessly leaned back in his 
seat. At length he said in a partially reflective humor : 

“Do you know, you give me the impression that your 
heart is now in cold storage and will not keep without 
it.” 

“Nevertheless I am heart whole and fancy free.” 

He could not observe the smile that lurked beneath her 
veil, but he knew it was there. 

“Then may be won, and by the gods of Israel and 
Greece and Rome and Egypt and Iceland I’ll win her 
hand and take the chances on her ice cold heart.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


23 


“Put it — by all the gods at once — and I’ll like it 
better.” 

“Good. And I’ll say by all the gods at once I’ll win 
you, my dear lady, time and opportunity given.” 

She was not mistaken when she noted that it was not 
love that moved him to this momentary lapse into a 
small semblance of emotion, but the sense of pique that 
she was twitting him. She was too all-wise — for a wo- 
man ! 

“And is this your proposal to me?” 

“Can you doubt it?” 

“Have I reason to?” 

“And this in the face of my profession!” 

“I imagined it was all a kind of side play for you.” 

“No horseplay about it — never more earnest in my 
life.” 

“Have you seen my father?” 

“I will as soon as he returns.” 

“Do English customs sanction your course this after- 
noon ?” 

“Perfectly under such circumstances.” 

“Is this your business in America?” 

“It is, I avow.” 

“Thanks for the comp.” 

“I am happy,” kissing her hand encased in auto- 
gloves. 

“I think I know papa’s mind.” 

“Tell me — O tell me!” again kissing the glove. 

“No, I’ll not deprive you of that pleasure.” 

He kissed her glove again. 

“What do you kiss my glove for?” 


24 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


He looked up and stared. His dazzling gray eyes had 
an uncertain hue of purple in them, and she thought his 
slender nose spoke in its animation. 

“Where is your heart, O woman!” 

“Where your sincerity is, O man!” 

The lapse into silence had a savor of hostility in it; 
and there is no love Hague to which to appeal from the 
decision of the Martian Cupid who thrusts spears through 
naked hearts painted on upper corners of scented note- 
paper. As it seemed to him she stood intrenched behind 
her father, and she was absolutely confident of his opin- 
ion, and that opinion was not complimentary to him — 
so it seemed. It crossed his mind that probably she knew 
more .of him than he might like for her to know, while 
he is playing the Dr. Jekyl in the game. And she won- 
dered if he could guess that her opinion of English lords 
in mass was not of the kind that had the unction of flat- 
tery in it. They dress well, regard good manners in 
the open as the sum and end of life, while at the same 
time they are in too many instances social criminals. 
Title is a passport to “good society” and the cloak for 
strange deeds and attitudes, and a license for selfish- 
ness. 

As the Earl assisted her from the auto-car at the home 
at Walpole, a swift survey about the prospect and Acadie 
brought him the sense of munificent wealth and comfort. 
His mental comment was, “It’s worth while.” And in 
addition, the girl herself is so thoroughly American and 
so intensely alert mentally that she is “worth while” in 
herself. 

He thought that on duly weighing the case he might 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


25 


in the end esteem Miss Wadsworth more for herself than 
for her financial excellences. But with no commercial 
qualities — well, there was one side to that “proposition.” 
Nevertheless she was a refreshing surprise to him, and 
certainly as his wife would not reproach him by undig- 
nified conversation. She was lovely as the rose, rare as 
the beryl, beautiful as Aphrodite, cultured beyond Eng- 
lish nambypambys, rich as Rockefeller, or J. Pierpont 
Morgan, or Croesus, lively as a September cricket, deft 
and prompt in self-defense, and charming in her wooing 
or being wooed. He was confident she set the style of 
the love confidences and sharps and flats that had just 
passed between them. She was a real love rebel; she 
cut with a trenchant Damascus blade in her conventional 
love wars. It was her cleverness and perfect control that 
made one dread a contest with her. It in a way was 
like meeting a steel-clad Knight of feudal times, or a 
warrior like Captain Dalgetty. And her bearing in gen- 
eral was strong and decisive and modest. There were 
sweet, winning elements in her, something not definable, 
that all men admire in model femininity. Graceful and 
perfect in appearance, and noble in countenance, she won 
attention and admiration. The elasticity and audacity of 
her step suggested the force of the motor within. Medium 
in height, an atmosphere supremely Eveish, a superior 
sense of the relativity of things, a marked and irrepres- 
sible good humor, she was a lovely girl. The rotundity 
of the magazine-made face in vogue at this moment, was 
relieved in her case by an impression of a slight elonga- 
tion obtained at a first swift sight. Hair black, with 
a pale tinge of Teutonic red in a certain angle of the 


26 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


sun ; complexion blond, merging or shading into the 
brunette; a rich, gentle voice, with no whine for unmer- 
ited sympathy in it; mind responsive, appreciative, logical, 
inventive; real kind and affectionate; abundant health, 
rose, and smile to correspond. 

And the commanding summer residence on the knoll 
that tripped gently down into Walpole was a “thing of 
beauty and a joy forever. It was flanked by noble trees 
that were at this moment putting forth a wealth of green 
and loveliness, a fabled miracle of charm and life. The 
elevation was a point commanding a wide survey and far. 
The many angled and gabled Acadie, with picturesque 
side entrances, was decorated in the soft embrace of the 
Boston ivy, — some said the Japanese ivy. Large oriel 
windows above and below, and the small-mullioned win- 
dows as per late English taste, raised the impression that 
it was built for broad light and roomy air rather than 
the special sense of proportion and grace. But this sense 
was swept away on entering the house. 

The automobile had come up the concrete drive-way 
and paused under the columned shed that was neither a 
porte-cochere nor a corridor, as sometimes called in the 
south. 

“Sam, show Earl Nero Pensive to Blue room, and, 
mark you, be constant in your service,” commanded 
Mina, pointing to Sam, an obedient colored young man, 
as they were entering the reception room. 

Sam knew no more who Nero Pensive was than he 
knew who kissed Susanna in the garden, about which the 
old bald heads made such an uproar. But Mina had told 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


27 


him to “wait on ’im,” and that was clear enough for 
Sam to comprehend and do. 

Sam led the Earl up a broad ascent of painted steps, 
and directed him to the Blue room. It was simply but 
elegantly furnished, and the garniture of wall and ceiling 
blended quietly with the ensemble. A vase of fresh 
early spring flowers adorned the stand, and a small bust 
of Hera was reflected from the large pier glass that sur- 
mounted the mantel. One of Trumbull’s pictures hung 
on the wall opposite the mantel, and a historical picture 
of the American Revolution was in the center of the 
front wall between two windows. All this the keen-eyed 
Earl caught at one survey of the room. 

Sam pointed out to him the bath, supplied with water 
by a gasoline motor. When Nero Pensive had removed 
the stains of travel, he sat down at a window, looked out 
upon the grand landscape, and meditated. All men have 
their periods of meditation, when they deal generously in 
self-adulation, — daub it on as thick as one of Shake- 
spere’s characters who painted so deep that a horse could 
mire on her cheek. He mused : 

“It will require a full hand to take this trick. It’s a 
game that can’t be played with reckless chance. She 
seems to have the cards stacked on me — on all men in 
general, on me in particular. Howerever, my title of 
‘Earl’ is the ‘joker or dog’ that is to win the game for 
me, and I intend to play it with the most skill. I don’t 
think she is averse to titles, though she seems prejudiced 
against ‘degenerate aristocracy.’ She don’t know the des- 
perate game I am playing, nor the desperation that actu- 
ates me. It is a considerable circumstance, and one to be 


28 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


noted with favor, that this typical American beauty, 
haughty as sin, proud as Lucifer, calm as Socrates, smart 
as a villain, met me at the Richmond station with her 
auto-car, and alone. But she is daring as Marshal La- 
febre, Napoleon’s favorite fighter, and I think would not 
view this trip as anything more than the most common- 
place affair. She evidently intends that I shall not re- 
gard the meeting me at the station unduly, for she insisted 
that she was only a substitute in her father’s necessary 
absence. And now that I am here, she is to be won — 
must be won — a case of necessity.” 

She entertained him well during her father’s absence, 
— at table, in equery exercises, in automobile tours about 
the country. He lingered on. And June was slipping 
away, and still he was the guest at Acadie. 

Mina had long planned to spend the season at Atlan- 
tic City. To remain would seem as if offering him the 
opportunity to find the way to her heart, if he had in- 
deed not already reached that haven. 


CHAPTER III 


N ERO Pensive, a name rounded out with 
“Earl,” entertained the opinion that he 
was “getting along fairly well” in winning 
Miss Mina Wadsworth’s hand, if not her 
heart. At all events she had not ceased to 
give encouraging attention to his protracted siege. 

He was, indeed, not seeking her heart or her appreci- 
ation, but her “daddy’s dollars.” Titular young chaps 
of the nobility, a class of drones all allow, in general are 
not difficult to persuade that “all things come their way,” 
by reason of the magic of the title — a sort of Aladdin’s 
lamp, — a sesame that opens all doors. 

Now, Mina was but mischievously impressed with 
him. In a moment of garrulity with herself she said he 
was a “whole lot of fun,” and it was only the more 
“funny” that he had not seen it. Notwithstanding he was 
a very clever gentleman. She had not thought of the 
truism that many things begun in fun end seriously. 

Slightly above the normal in height, commanding, 
handsome, clever, debonair, active habit of body though 
not dapper, carefully perfumed, daintly gloved and boot- 
ed, always immaculately dressed in the fastidious French 
fashion, pointed shoes, high-waisted coats, flat-brimmed 
hats, scented kerchiefs, upturned Prince William mus- 
tache, and all the other things so dear to the heart of 
the commonplace, light-headed gentry — why shouldn’t he 

29 


30 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


achieve her. Indeed, she would not be able to with- 
stand him and his blandishments and his title. More- 
over, he was a long-established Englishman; she a brief 
upstart American, — something like the Buntlings in 
“Bunding Ball.” 

Down in her deepmost heart Mina was confiding to 
herself, without the graces of figures of speech, — “The 
dolt!” Fine enough coat, fine enough speech, fine enough 
manners, fine enough temper, but frayed and seamy 
morals. But opinions change as well as emotions. 

And he was confident he knew her mind, or knew 
what it would be in the not far-off future, — a pleasure 
he had in a self-confident prophesy of the future. So 
these two persons were externally quite comme il faut, 
internally quite farcical in incongruous mental attitudes. 
It was not a strained inharmony, rather an unworded 
comedy. And the melodrama was not uninteresting to 
her; and therein lay her snare, and she, shrewd as she 
was, knew it not. But this was an attitude of hers that 
he knew nothing about, and hence he could not use it to 
her injury. And so the play went on. He repeatedly 
urged himself upon her as the one who could best make 
her life happy. 

The evening sun had concealed itself behind the hori- 
zon for the night, bidding every one cease the labors of 
the day. The Earl had asked her to stroll among the 
trees with him. Their gait had nothing of the jollity of 
youth; it had a staid, solemn air. 

“I have staid long,” he said, showing teeth that sug- 
gested a growl, “and I would I knew your answer.” 

“Is it important — material?” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


3i 


“It — my life depends on it.” 

“So does mine,” she suggested. 

“Why do you evade? You know I love you.” 

“Yes.” 

“Eve come from Europe, so powerful has been your 
attraction, to propose to you, and do you still hesitate?” 

“Best things are hardest to obtain.” 

“Self-flattery,” he smiled. 

“I meant it so.” Her frankness was like abuse of 
him. 

“But, I would urge, and ever will urge, that you 
give me an affirmative. I should be more than happy 
could I go away with your answer whispering ever in my 
heart.” 

It would have been crude to say to him he should go 
away without her answer in his pocket or in his “heart,” 
if he had any, so she altered her thought to — 

“Have you seen [no, she could not say “papa,” so she 
altered it to] Mr. Wadsworth?” 

“It is my purpose to do so on the morrow. He has 
been here only since yesterday.” 

“I would suggest here that my father’s views in no 
way bind me, except as the broader wisdom of a parent.” 

“I understand so much of your Americanism,” he ven- 
tured. 

“And he commends, but not commands, my freedom 
of judgment and expression.” She threw out a banter- 
ing smile, looking for “fun,” seeking it, inviting it. 

“Noble father.” 

“And this privilege, or perhaps right, I intend never 
to surrender.” 


32 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“But will you not give me your answer to my anxious 
appeal, before I leave on the morrow?” 

“You go so soon?” archly. 

But she did not answer him as he wished. It had al- 
most become dark, when they ended the stroll and the 
talk, all of his planning. It was not agreeable to him 
that she seemed so indifferent to his departure. He had 
cherished the ambition [well, reader, let the language 
stand at that] that he would make an “impression” be- 
fore this time. No doubt he had, if he could only read 
her mind. And, to tell the truth, she was acknowledging 
some things to herself. 

The reason for his leaving he disclosed to no one. 
Merely explaining that he had immediate and import- 
ant business elsewhere, he stated it was necessary for him 
to go. As if he had been repeatedly asked to remain. 

The mail that morning had brought him several let- 
ters. 

“I trust no bad news,” said the ex-Senator Merrill 
Wadsworth, who had returned a day or two before from 
his politico-business trip, as they journied to Richmond 
together in the swift touring car. 

“No. That is, it is a venture in brewery stocks that 
seems to have gone wrong.” 

“At present many vested rights are enjoying the pleas- 
ures of reorganization and revaluation, and some of them 
are proving out to have been rather shakey ventures from 
the beginning; something of speculative enterprises with 
promoters behind them. President Roosevelt, in the in- 
terest of the great general public as he views it, is stirring 
up these insecure financial games that pray on the inno- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


33 


cent public by threats of suit, or of exposure through in- 
vestigation, and by advocating public supervision. Hence 
the commotion among them, deep and silent like a mighty 
sea-swell.” 

The ex-Senator, a man of large, liberal political views 
as well as of vast wealth, had touched upon one of his 
themes that he was fullest of and sanest upon. He did 
not deviate from it in his prolonged monologue through- 
out the one hour’s journey along the main and well- 
traveled smooth road. 

The ex-Senator was journeying to Richmond for busi- 
ness reasons, and it was pleasant to have the Earl along 
as an attentive auditor though a non-appreciative one. 

Not once on the way did the Earl Nero Pensive ad- 
dress him on the subject of the marriage of his daugh- 
ter,— or her dowry. It might be that — what? 

That Mina had refused him; that she had told her 
father and mother the whole story, not even omitting the 
comedy part and the significant intonations of voice, and 
they had enjoyed the refreshing tale, given as a confided 
secret, to be sure ; that the noble English Earl had altered 
his mind, or had considered it useless to prosecute a hope- 
less case; that he was sullenly reticent because of some 
unknown passage at arms between him and Mina. 

He said he was going to Chicago. 


CHAPTER IV 


W HY Nero Pensive went to New York in- 
stead of Chicago, and why he concealed 
his acts, will appear in the sequel to 
his course. 

“What in the mischief brought you 
over to this land of novelty and boasts, Mith?” 

“I never speak out, you know, for even pitchers — .” 
“O, blast your pitcher’s ears.” 

“Well—” 

“Blank-blank your wells!” 

This was no uncommon mood of the Earl, when he 
was in the atmosphere he loved best, that of the base and 
corrupt and morally criminal. There he was at home and 
at ease, a veritable Mr. Hyde — without the physician’s 
chemicals. 

Mith Gulliver, closited as they were alone in a room 
in a New York hotel, went up to the Earl, put his hand 
to his mouth, glanced around, and stooping whispered in 
the Earl’s ear: 

“I’ve lost all trace of Clarissa Harlow.” ' 

“The devil!” 

“Yes.” 

Mith Gulliver was a born liar, and his egotism even 
exceeded his talent for romancing; but he was withal a 
“hale fellow well met,” and could fairly out-drink the 
Earl ; and because of his ability to be a parasite he never 
34 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


35 


quite “fell down” in the estimation of his friend. More- 
over, he was a necessary factor in some of the non-writ- 
able deeds of his “lord and master,” whose hand he licked 
because it fed him. He was withal a cheerful liar, and 
a “smart Alecky chap;” a great boaster and a pretender 
of much shrewdness that nature had not endowed him 
with. He was practically valueless as a spy, but a suave 
pretender to a world of things. 

Truth to tell he had not lost all trace of Clarissa Har- 
low. He lied to the Earl, so that he might say at their 
next meeting that he had, with great skill, found her 
again. His purpose was to demonstrate his exceeding ex- 
cellence as a Sherlock Holmes. In addition to this it 
made him more necessary to the Earl, and gave him the 
occasion to extort more money from him. 

Their conversation, scarcely begun, was interrupted by 
a note delivered by a bell-boy. 

“Unfinished biz. — to be resumed at our next meeting 
— deferred or tabled,” ejaculated Mith Gulliver in good- 
humored smiles so broad as to merit the characteriza- 
tion of a laughing philosopher. 

“Send him up, boy,” said the Earl with a frown that 
was neither laconic or dramatic, but mean. 

In a moment Lawrence Dunston entered. 

“Hello, Lawrence!” cried Mith Gulliver, just as if he 
had not seen this mutual friend an hour before, — indeed, 
had Darted from him in the rotunda of the hotel to seek 
the apartment of the Earl. He was false to himself, if 
he was not deceiving somebody. 

“Good fellow, how are you?” said Lawrence Dunston, 
keeping up the harmless figment of not having met Mith 

8 


36 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


for some appreciable time. “I’m more than delighted 
to see you, dear Earl,” he added as he shook his hand 
the first time on American soil, and then shook Mith’s 
hand. 

Lawrence Dunston was an ex-Englishman, a friend of 
Nero, and a real gentlemanly looking fellow. But he 
was “himself his worst enemy,” “drank wine in bowls,” 
“put an enemy in his mouth to steal away his brains.” 
“Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is 
a devil.” “O, thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou 
hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.” 

“Friend Dunston, I have nothing but good will for 
you,” began the Earl, “but I see a light of joy in your 
eyes that is suggestive.” 

“No offense, dear Earl, by your inquiry, I beg to say 
hurriedly and sincerely,” said Lawrence Dunston with 
“civility” that smacked of smirking. “But my business 
now is to take you two gentlemen and banquet you at 
my last bachelor’s entertainment. 

“Good Lord, Lawrence, what you givin’ us!” cried 
Mith Gulliver, the cheerful, egotistical liar, “striking an 
attitude.” 

“Shake, old pard,” said the Earl. 

“Put ’er there,” said Mith. 

“A benedict forever more,” said Lawrence. 

“Many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,” said the Earl, 
a shadow of a smile scarcely observable in his face. 

Lawrence Dunston had been in America several years. 
And he had “met his fate” and been conquered. The 
lovely young lady, the daughter of a wealthy merchant 
and a chum of Mina Wadsworth at Vassar, had con- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


37 


sented, true enough, to be a bride and alter her name 
from Miss Olive Pendell to Mrs. Lawrence Dunston. 

But so deftly had he concealed his private character, 
that she knew him not. She knew not that he leaned 
against the brass railing at the bar and put a foot upon 
the support or fender at the floor and looked into the 
disgusting cuspidor. Even Mrs. Carrie Nation had not 
more definite temperance views, though more demonstra- 
tive over them, than had Olive Pendell. Lawrence knew 
her opinions on the subject of “drink,” and he professed 
to her to entertain “very similar opinions.” Perhaps he 
did, but he was not very faithful in keeping them. 

So these three boon pals set out on this evening to 
“have the time of their lives,” to “make a night of it,” 
and “get gloriously full” — “celebrate” the prospective 
event of Lawrence Dunston’s marriage. They “cele- 
brated.” 

On the same evening, in a way approved by public 
sentiment and public sanity, Miss Olive Pendell, fiancee 
of Lawrence Dunston, was celebrating the glories of 
“wine and women,” not in the Anacreontic style but in 
the approved style of “temperance fanatics,” so called by 
some in derision. She assisted the Independent Order 
of Rechabites in emptying bottles of wine into the gutter. 
These temperance people, through the connivance of the 
Rechabite butler, were permitted to carry from the cel- 
lar the wine of the deceased Pendell and empty it into 
the streets. Mrs. Pendell and her only child, Olive, were 
strict temperance people and regular attendants at 
church, but Mr. Petra Pendell was a man who always 
quoted Paul’s advice and never failed to follow it while 


38 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


he lived. After his death much wine, French, Spanish, 
German, and American brands, was found in his well- 
replenished cellar. Mrs. Pendell knew not how to dis- 
pose of it without public shame, and in her dilemma the 
Rechabite butler assured her he could destroy it, and that 
in a way to enforce a temperance precept. 

This mother and daughter, noble types of American 
womanhood and sentiment, were not idlers in the cause 
they unobtrusively advocated. They despised explosive 
and demonstrative aggression. It was their pleasure to 
counsel temperance in eating, and stoutly maintain that 
from force of life-long habit most people ate them- 
selves into decrepitude. They were not foolish vegetar- 
ians, but they thought the amount of meat, or carnivorous 
food, taken should be limited to human bodily needs. 
The amount to be consumed daily should be determined 
by environment, heredity, pursuit, and habits. They 
realized that an absolute restriction of diet to grasses, 
vegetables, fruits, and nuts did not meet all the designs of 
the Creator of the human body, else why implant in man 
an appetite or craving for it and why design certain 
animals to be able to survive only on flesh? This latter 
fact of pursuit, capture, and tragic death suggests a di- 
vine law of opposition, of life and death, of life by death, 
of atonement. It is no secret to say that Olive wrote a 
book on “The Wealth or Aristocracy of Health,” and 
her mother also wrote a book christened “Practical Cook- 
ing and Dinner Giving.” 

One day during the life of Thomas B. Reed, while 
he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, he was 
entertained by these ladies at their fine home in New 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


39 


York. He had been told in advance that he would be 
fed on “sick-peoples’ diet,” and would get nothing to eat 
that a well man desired, so that he was rather alarmed 
over the prospect. However, he assured himself that 
one meal did not constitute a habit any more than one 
swallow made a summer. But he was happily disap- 
pointed. He had “vegetable fish,” “vegetable butter,” 
“vegetable meat,” and other such dishes, and would 
hardly believe they were not real flesh even when informed 
by Olive what he was eating. 

It was Olive’s favorite idea — but never obtruded 
where it was de trop — that all people eat from force of 
habit too much food for the mere taste instead of for 
the actual demands of nature. An enthusiast of the 
Delsartian system of exercises, she and Mina Wadsworth 
had given considerable attention and practice to it at 
Vassar. It was but recently that they wore the cap and 
gown. 

It is about as Prof. P. Thomas Nelson says, — in this 
day of multiplied quacks and infinitude of “specifics” that 
cure nothing, it is “foolish” for any one to be sick a 
single minute — “to hear the quacks tell it.” With na- 
ture cures, vegetable beefstakes, predigested foods, nerve 
foods, uncooked-foods, dyspeptic foods, grain-nuts, toasted 
flakes, tsweibached bread, breakfast foods, malto-vito, 
Aunt Sally Lunn breakfast cakes, cakes, pies, and all such 
fancy names for catching the purse of the unwary, to- 
gether with bacteria cranks, medico-gymnasts, and crim- 
inal knife users — it is no wonder the American people are 
a race of guilty dyspeptics. 

The tent of Rechabites, to which belonged the butler 


40 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


of the Pendell home, had an al fresco party on the lawn 
to the right and rear of the house. To make the evening 
attractive and memorable they proposed to clean out the 
Pendell cellar, an annex of his Sooty Majesty’s Kingdom, 
and smash the bottles in the street. There was not a 
little hilarity accompanying this work, — but it was not 
a fanciful, direct wine-made ebullition of the emotions. 
Some persons, who had been offering profuse libations to 
Gambrinus, chanced to pass by and heard the jollity. 

Earl Nero Pensive, without a word to his pals, strode 
upon the lawn and mingled with the jolly Rechabites. 
And Mith Gulliver and Lawrence Dunston, thinking it 
a giddy “lark,” followed their mellow leader. The lawn 
was brilliantly lighted by electric bulbs and fanciful 
Chinese lanterns suspended from wires crossing overhead. 
It was a lively scene. The intruders, undiscovered, en- 
tered the wine cellar with others and seizing several bot- 
tles emerged upon the lawn. They had not fairly com- 
prehended the character of the entertainment into which 
they had obtruded. 

Filled with alcoholic bravado, the one with the English 
title deliberately settled himself upon both feet, opened 
a bottle of tokay, held it high in the light, and cried 
aloud : 

“Here’s to him who passes suds (beer) over the ma- 
hogany.” Quite ignorant of the consternation provoked 
by his action, and quite unconcerned about it, he took a 
long pull, smacked his lips in self-approval, and dashed 
the bottle away. His act did not have the appearance of 
conscious sanity. 

“Here’s to all my friends,” shouted Mith Gulliver, fol- 
lowing suit. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


4i 


“Here’s to her who is to be mine to-morrow,” shrieked 
Lawrence Dunston in a gurgling, maudlin tone. 

The Rechabites were stunned, and looked it. Moro 
Posey, the temperance butler, touched the Earl on the 
elbow and finally said: 

“We think—” 

“Don’t care a — what you think. I’m not after your 
thinks, as your Bill Nye would put it,” said this man of 
elegant presence, winning manners, and reputed refine- 
ment and culture. 

“Will you kindly give us the pleasure of your absence, 
sir?” 

“By Moses, no!” yelled the Earl, striking Moro Posey 
a blow in the face with a flat hand. 

“But, sir, you will” calmly said Moro Posey, seizing 
the Earl’s arms with his powerful and sinewy hands, 
pinioning them behind him, and then forcing the obtruder 
across the grassy lawn in strides too rapid to be courtly 
and off into the street with a sort of Parthian salute with 
the toe of his shoe. 

Mith Gulliver ran after, carrying two full bottles in 
each hand. 

“Wait for me, friend Earl,” he bellowed out in hot 
haste. 

“Will you go,” said Olive Pendell to Lawrence Duns- 
ton, whom she had not recognized at the moment in the 
episodical confusion. 

“Certainly, mum,” bowing so low in mock deference 
that he almost fell, in his topheaviness. 

Then Olive looked at him in utter bewilderment. She 
trembled like a leaf. 

“Is it possible!” 


42 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


She ran away shocked beyond all measure. It was a 
horrible revelation, a complete overthrow, as if the stars 
had quavered in dread of something beyond man’s ken, 
to discover Lawrence, her Lawrence, in such a beastly 
condition and at such a place and time. 

Without another word he fled after his boon compan- 
ions, guilty in the secret places of his soul, and sought 
relief in the darkness of the street away from the spot 
of his disgrace and overthrow. He had told Olive with 
such beautiful asseverations again and again that he was 
“strictly temperance,” and here now fate had revealed him 
a villainous liar. He was guilty of what nothing could 
ever wipe out. There was no atonement for this dis- 
covery of his sin. There was no scapegoat. He was a 
moral derelict, and no exegetics could make him anything 
else. 

The rest of the night he was a regular sot, steeped to 
stupidity in the dreamy liquid the Bacchanals praise, the 
cup that inebriates. 

The sweet pure girl, who was to become his wife at 
public service in church next day, was crushed — ruined 
forever ! What a devil had shattered her idol ! All night 
long she was overcome with feelings that tortured tears 
from her eyes and groans from her heart. 

When he, accompanied by the Earl, appeared at the 
church at the meridian hour next day, they looked fresh 
in their fine new wedding dress. Lawrence allowed, 
and he always said, no marriage could be carried out 
without the presence of both bride and bridegroom, for 
in that exigency not even marriage by proxy could be per- 
formed. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


43 


A secret fear crept into him, when he observed the 
small attendance. As he stood in the church vestibule, 
dressed, gloved, and smooth, a letter was handed to him 
by a member of the family of the bride-elect. In a sort 
or premonitory trepidation he opened the envelope and 
glanced quickly : 

“I have always said I would not marry a man who 
drank,” the espistle began. “But it is worse than mad- 
ness to marry a man who does not even love me well 
enough to keep his sacred promise — to me — that he would 
never touch, taste, nor handle the unclean thing. I can 
not marry you after what I saw last night. It tears my 
heart to pieces to have to say this to you, friend Law- 
rence, but it must be said. This also I must say, that my 
prayers shall ever ascend to Him who rewards a virtuous, 
faithful, and manly life. My tears shall ever be an obla- 
tion for you. 

“It is best for you and me that our association in life 
be abruptly but positively ended here forever. I love 
you still, Lawrence, and I die a broken and shattered 
death while writing this cruel letter, cruel alike to you 
and to me; but I assure you that we still live, that hope 
and possibility are not dead, and that God reigns over all, 
— the great, forgiving God of the Jews and all Christen- 
dom. 


“ ‘Howe’er it be, it seems to me, 

’Tis only noble to be good. 

Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
And simple faith than Norman blood.’ 
Good-bye, Lawrence, good-bye forever!” 


44 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Lawrence Dunston turned deadly pale, when he had 
read this letter. More than ever before the noble girl 
seized his heart. She was right — quite right — eternally 
right. No one has a shadow of apology for drinking. 
“By the God that Olive trusts in, I will be a man — for 
her sake. And for my own. And for humanity.” 

Noble fellow! Live to your prayer! 

Turning to the Earl, he said simply: 

“It’s all off!” 

The Earl stammered and begged for the reasons. And 
when Lawrence finally told him, he swore worse than 
the devil, and said all sorts of twaddle and sharp things 
about Olive Pendell. As a climax to his stupid flux de 
bouche he declared that it was fortunate that Lawrence 
had escaped so puny-minded life-partner. Lawrence cau- 
tioned him to say no vile things of her, for he loved her 
still, and would allow no one to traduce so sweet, sane, 
and noble girl. In addition it was not best to speak ill 
of any mother’s daughter. 

He set the clock of his life right, and from that mo- 
ment was a reformed, sober man. The great shame and 
defeat of his life, his own doing, and that was the incon- 
solable grief of it, wrought out his own salvation. Un- 
der the natural law of opposites human trials are human 
redemption, or else drudgery, the fruits of “the curse,” 
is not a blessing. 

“I’m going home — a different — man!” 

He went home alone, a new creature, with a set res- 
olution to achieve a good name, an added purpose to live 
for something. Hitherto life drifted, and that is a calam- 
ity, a tragedy that ends in ghosts. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


45 


The Earl, moody and sullen, and Mith Gulliver went 
away together, leaving Lawrence to his sin and his mutin- 
ous thoughts. These two, accomplished in sin, went to 
their room in a hotel. Mith there expanded one of his 
lies into a great story. The Earl was inattentive. The 
narrator needed no audience. 

“I have no desire to boast — never do, you know T — 
and I certainly can’t tell a lie — what’s the use?” Mith’s 
tongue was unhappy unless it were wagging. “But I 
want to tell you my latest experience as an ex-son of 
Scotland Yard. It transpired in this city, and only yes- 
ternight. Late thing — no chestnut — fresh as a newly 
roast nut.” In the pride of himself, and as a compliment 
to himself, he sipped a bit of the whiskey and soda on 
the table, and with a peculiar swallow and elongation of 
the neck and clasp of the lips he put down the glass with 
a jingling bump. “ I say — .” 

“D — you, cut out your repetitions, or I’ll put a head 
on you,” demanded Nero Pensive, dominated by a list- 
less, irritable demeanor, throwing his heels upon the table 
and linking his hands behind his head. His scowl was 
enough to curdle milk, some said. 

“All right, my friend, all right,” nodding profusely. 
“As I say—.” 

“What in the — do I care for your ‘I say!’ ” Bored, 
mean, devilish, a fallen angel. 

“O, yes, my friend. I see. All right. I say — I never 
boast, I never lie, I never get drunk, that is to say, get 
drunk , ‘the clochan yill just makes me canty,’ but I say 
Scotland Yards never turned out a better thief-catcher 
than I am myself. It happened this way, my friend, you 


46 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


see.” The fellow, consumed as he was with egotism — 
the parent of enthusiasm — seemed to be patting himself 
on the back, since no one else would do it — and he must 
be patted. “As I say, it happened this way, as best I re- 
member. Years ago young George Washington quarreled 
with his multi-millionaire daddy, and his daddy took re- 
venge on the boy and sent him bug-hunting, and dismissed 
him from home, and forbid him ever returning. The 
irate old daddy shipped his boy in a sailing vessel bound 
for a long voyage around the world, and he set a detective 
over the lad, whose duty it was to see that the boy should 
never again return to New York. The detective gave 
the young man freely of poetic booze, and was succeed- 
ing admirably in making a total wreck of him. And the 
young fellow too had just succeeded in getting a sheepskin 
from Yale college. After his quarrel with his father, a 
feud never to be reconciled, his daddy cut him off without 
a dollar, and he knew he never would heir a cent, except 
enough for daily spending money. So when he parted 
for good and aye from his bosom friend, Robert Bums, 
while hanging on each other’s necks they vowed, with 
tears of regret at parting for aye, that if — they vowed 
that if they ever should make a ten-strike, or any other 
kind of a strike, should they be so fortunate they would 
divy up even with one another. Young George Wash- 
ington — this ain’t his real name, you see, — made a long 
tour around the world, a three years’ trip, and in all 
that time never heard a word from home. He didn’t 
want to hear. I nosed out the young heir in Lon’on, hav- 
ing heard that his father had meanwhile died and left 
his only heir all his hundred millions. The wife was 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


47 


dead, and so was the daughter. The boy had outlived all 
of them, and is alive now. I say, I had the good fortune 
to tell the boy of his wonderful inheritance. He was now 
one of the finest specimens of physical humanity I ever 
saw — an Apollo Belvedere and Milo rolled into one. He 
said he always had money, but the daddy never told him 
he was supplying the filthy lucre. The lawyers, anxious 
to get a rich slice of the great assets of Mr. Washington, 
pere, defunct now and wholly unable to lay claim to his 
large accumulations and not able to transfer them for 
comer lots upon the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, 
or to hypothecate his earthly bonds for some central 
squares in the beautiful heavenly city, the lawyers, I 
say, had offered a munificent bounty for the return of 
the young heir to so much wealth, and that’s partly, I 
say, how I come now to be in New York — as I was about 
to say yesterday when friend Lawrence Dunston broke in 
upon our confidence, you know. Young George Wash- 
ington, the other name is — I forget — he is a real fellow 
— not a mummy in clothes. He’s been around some, and 
he is no slouch, I can assure you, I say. He’s next to your 
own kind self. 

“Well, I say, just as I had ferretted him out in 
Lon’on, who do you suppose should turn up but his heav- 
enly-made friend, Robert Bums, on a similar mission to 
mine. He was hunting his long lost friend, George 
Washington. That ain’t his real name. He had drifted 
west after separating years ago at Yale, and by shrewd 
judgment and lucky investments he had secured inter- 
ests in the goldfields. He was fabulously rich. He was 
hunting his friend, dead or alive, to share his wealth with 


48 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


him. Wasn’t that fine. But George didn’t need a cent 
of it.” 

“Dead or alive — go on,” interposed the Earl suddenly. 
Mith paused half astonished at the “break-in” as he 
called it. 

“You bet you they were glad to meet. I was there and 
I know. (He was not). They got to going to the 
theatre. Both of them had utterly tabooed strong drink 
— cut it out entirely — though they used to booze till they 
had to put on the sideboards, and then some. They said 
they cut it out, seeing how little good there was in it and 
how terrible bustheads and how much downright foolish- 
ness and positive injury.” 

At this point the harmless Ananias hesitated, seemingly 
dishonestly segregating what he might say from what he 
should conceal in the rubbish of his mental garret. To 
disguise his reason for pausing he took another sip of the 
toddy, smacking his lips with peculiar emphasis as an ap- 
preciation of the drink that was warming the cockles of 
his heart. Resuming his windy recital he said : 

“When they had renewed former early assurances of 
eternal friendship, both for this world and the world 
to come, they then recounted and narrated with plain 
simplicity their two lives lived since they had last met. 
Now, it was a noble sight to see and hear ’em — such 
awful real friends. So George is to divide with Bob, and 
Bob he is to divide with George. An there you have it. 
And so it was settled. Then, as I said, they went to the 
theatre and actually got to giving the awfully beautiful 
young operatic singer bunches of hot-house posies.” 

“Who was the actress?” sitting up lethargically and 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


49 


yawning. Mith Gulliver deliberately took another sip 
of brandy and soda, delaying his answer to a provoking 
extent. He was weighing possible effects of his answer. 

“Clarissa Harlow.” 

Instantly as by an electric charge Nero Pensive sprang 
to his feet and in uncommon animation, that needed ex- 
planation which he had no intent of giving, he cried 
harshly : 

“Death!” 

“No — all living yet, I guess — or was last time I knew. 
This however is not from my real detective store of 
secrets — I say, it is no secret, but it is my candid opinion 
that they are all still living.” 

“Thou fool— Raca!” 

“ ’Pon honor! I’m tellin’ you the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth,” said Mith in pure 
self-defense. 

“You seedy degenerate!” 

“Thanks. Your special friend in any way you desire 
to use me.” 

“What became of them?” frowning like the dragon 
that Jason overcame by the assistance of Medea. 

“The two men are here in the city.” 

“And the woman?” 

“As I told you, she is temporarily out of my sight. 
But—” 

“Blank-blank you!” And he actually struck Mith 
Gulliver in the face with his fist. The Mr. Hyde actu- 
ated him, restraints being off. 

“You’ll regret this,” muttered Mith, wiping the slight 
bruise on his left cheek. 


50 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“D — you!” And he flung himself out of the room 
like a crazy loon. He rushed to the street. He took a 
surface car — he cared not where — anywhere. But no 
man can run away from himself. 

Now, Mith Gulliver, sometimes named the romancing 
artist, had a limp judgment — a lymphatic apprehensioin 
of conditions — a pragmatic air about all he did. But he 
had one ready word for every one who did not fall in 
with his ready way of seeing and hearing things, and that 
word was “crank.” One may believe it as a rule that it is 
the incompetents who are readiest with the epithet. 
They do not see that the term establishes nothing, is no 
final classification of facts, the relationship of which can 
be seen only in futurity. Many a one has meditated like 
this: 

“Your way! My way! Whose way shall prevail — is 
correct? You think I have no wishes you are bound to 
respect. And you undertake to enforce your way. Not 
what does the other fellow want, but what I want. My 
rights (not duties) ; not the other fellow's pleasures. No 
appeal from your decision; no one to appeal to. You are 
the ‘final end.’ The other fellow is not as good a judge 
as you; therefore he could not arbitrate the case. Meum, 
tuum” 

You blush — guilty. 

Mith Gulliver at the moment was “good and angry,” 
as he worded it. But before he met Nero Pensive again 
his anger had “cooled off.” It was money to him to be 
complaisant, complaisant to the best of his ability, which 
of course was no very comprehensive matter. 


CHAPTER V 


I T was in the Windy City, at the very time Mith 
Gulliver in New York was reciting his garbled 
bits of experience to Nero Pensive. And Mith 
had permitted his altogether too vivid imagination 
to color and add to the facts, so that no man could 
disentangle the truth from the romance. The pursuit of the 
events in their course is all that remains to be done. 

Dean McBarron had an engagement to meet Clarissa 
Harlow, but circumstances intervened and unceremoni- 
ously interrupted the meeting. The beautiful young opera 
singer was expecting him. For reasons very proper to 
herself, and also at Mith Gulliver’s advice, she for the 
present was known as Miss I. Single. Dean had not 
known up to this moment that she was incognito. And 
when informed of it, he was impressed that the name 
was taken as a whimsical affair only for the airy summer 
season. No more. 

In vain she awaited his coming. The hour stole by 
with leaden feet. She worried about it. He was fickle 
as the wind. The very moments reproached her with 
his inconstancy. She said she was like all other women, 
— “a fool after a man — after a mere man!” Why do 
poor women, easy believing and easily imposed on, trust 
the unconscionable things at all! There ought to be a 
law to protect woman from them! No, that wouldn’t do. 
They are the best friends women have, for what wo- 

51 


4 


52 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


man dare trust a woman. Surely something has hap- 
pened, or he would come. “I will not believe he is fickle,” 
she said aloud to herself. 

Hour after hour drifted away, the day entered the 
tomb of the past, the shadows of evening fell like an en- 
swathement of death over all alike. Erebus stalked 
abroad, and night at length yielded its scepter to the 
gentle Horae who ushered Apollo again upon the scene 
as King of day. And yet Dean McBarron was as deeply 
engulfed in the great general mass as the veriest un- 
crowned knight that handled a hoe. Not even a hint to 
explain his strange conduct. It could not be that he 
had deceived her and deserted her! The idea was in- 
conceivable, unbearable, unentertainable, causing her to 
feel pulseless. 

An ill wind drove furiously out of the north all day, 
bringing dust and disconsolateness. yEolus had come once 
more to claim and manifest his authority on earth. Trees 
bowed their strained backs, as Taolus plied his lashes upon 
them furiously, scolding meanwhile with a sort of Sten- 
torian roar that fairly terrified the very soul of things. 
Shingles, insecure in their places, were forcibly ripped up 
and whirled into the street, where they were either ground 
to powder by the wheels or were picked up by poor chil- 
dren. Dust, fitful and strangling, arose in swirls and 
tangles, lashed into fury and drifting clouds. The peo- 
ple went about bent and eyeless. The dusty gust wrestled 
with them, enveloped them, and strove to hurl them down. 

As Dean McBarron said, he “started on schedule time 
to fulfill his date,” but the wind! It brought disappoint- 
ment and disaster to more than himself. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


53 


A cutting, grinding bit of cinder cozily took up resi- 
dence in his right eye, and absolutely refused to give up 
possession. He was in tortures, so that he was obliged 
to seek an oculist. He stumbled up long dark stairs into 
his office, where the obtruder in his camera obscura was 
forcibly ejected. 

Once more in the street and on his way, though his 
eye was angry-looking and uncomfortable. Perhaps now 
he would reach his destination. But the moirae were 
against him. Having gone but a half block, the arbitrary, 
fickle wind, demanding and enforcing civility, snatched 
off his hat and meanly flung it into the lake. He saw it 
scudding away like a cockleshell before the ruthless blast 
that wrinkled the water surface into waves that made 
the shipping swell and grind at the landing. Hatless he 
could not proceed. So some time was again lost in se- 
lecting and purchasing a new hat. Within he was a 
raging furnace at his “luck.” “While he mused the fire 
burned” in his upwrought heart. His thoughts were not 
the “thoughts of youth” but of a cave filled with the fierce 
winds of Tiolus. 

“I should have the patience of Penelope, or the 
wife of the Marquis of Saluzzo, as told by the Decameron 
of Boccaccio and retold by Chaucer in the Clerk’s tale 
found in the Canterbury Tales, if I didn’t feel woozy 
under the circumstances.” 

He was adding renewed animation to his quick step, 
passing many people groaning and rubbing street rubbish 
out of their best physical sense, and three or four times 
steering straight into some wind-warped lady pedestrain, 
to whom he offered profuse apologies for the mishap, but 


54 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


progress was slow nevertheless. But he scurried on like 
his hat sailing away on the lake to some fairy land, where 
it would perhaps be discovered by Lewis Carroll, or the 
Brownies. Suddenly an arm of wind, quickly and sharply, 
reached down and knocked off his new hat and dashed 
it into the street. It fell in front of a heavy dray-wheel 
that relentlessly crushed its proud soul into a shapeless 
dead mass. 

“Bad cess to you!” Dean McBarron groaned out in 
timid but no uncertain unction of soul. As he stooped to 
pick up his pitiable looking hat, a sign let go from its 
moorings, sailed down from above, and the wind in sav- 
age fury, dashed it upon him, postrating him at one fell 
blow. There he lay, not unconscious but hors de combat. 
Some ribs with vicious purpose suddenly undertook to 
torment him, and they succeeded. Their sudden revolu- 
tion suggested to him the fable of the “Venter et Mem- 
bra.” Above all he hoped it was not a strike for “more 
pay.” If it might be for a better distribution of duties 
than products, he would offer less resistance. The one is 
altruistic, the latter selfish. It was not the whole matter 
to proclaim their “petition reasonable,” nor to say they 
wanted their “just rights with more agreeable conditions.” 
So violent an announcement of a “grievance” was neither 
reasonable nor profitable. 

He was picked up from the street and hurried to the 
hospital. A descendant of Democedes arbitrated the case. 
It was a compulsory arbitration imposed on him by the 
striking, recalcitrant, horny-handed, sun-browned, every- 
day working ribs. A truce was patched up. The Mr. 
Ribs in triumphant humility resumed their accustomed la- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


55 


bors. They always afterward cherished the proud satis- 
faction that they had achieved a glorious, gold-crown vic- 
tory and their proud, arbitrary owner humbled and made 
to see “just where he belongs.” 

The wind had broken down, or so “crossed” and dis- 
organized the telephone wires at the hospital, that Dean 
could not send word to Miss I. Single and explain his 
failure to meet her. By a messenger boy next morning he 
sent her a note of apology, explaining why he “missed 
connection.” The Mercurial-footed messenger boy 
brought back a note. It read that the “Young lady” 
would call on him that afternoon. And the relief this 
information gave Dean permitted Morpheus to touch 
his eyes with his wand for the first time, since the dis- 
astrous encounter with TloIus, who unfairly hurled busi- 
ness signs and decrepit window shutters at him, and even 
tugged to upset houses on him. 

All the time of Miss I. Single’s call, the poor suffering 
mortal groaned inwardly from pain. However, in strict 
confidence with himself, he concealed his tortures from 
her. Miss I. Single, formerly Clarissa Harlow, entered 
in silence the apartment at the hospital where Dean lay. 
She entertained mixed ideas, whether to blame him for 
not calling on her yesterday, causing her serious disap- 
pointment or hold him — a man — in contemptuous repro- 
bation for permitting himself to be hurt. Indeed, a wo- 
man might have met with misfortune in the open, hurly- 
burly, deadly street, but a man — never! 

She was proudly dressed, typical of gaudy pictures, 
when she alighted from an electric hansom at the hospital. 
Dean McBarron saw her step forth upon the pavement. 


56 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


His room was in the second story and overlooked the 
crossing of the streets. He lifted his uninjured arm and 
fluttered his handkerchief from the open window at her. 
She bowed and smiled up at him. Ah, what a splendid 
carriage and what a beautiful woman she was! It seemed 
that everybody paused to look and admire. And her cos- 
tuming was admirable in its richness and perfect in colors 
and adaptation to her lovely figure and charming spirit. 
She walked, the perfect woman, the cynosure of all, a be- 
ing rarely seen on earth, — almost a whim of delight and 
love and beauty, a chef-d’oeuvre of nature. 

When a nurse pointed her into the room, her smile 
resembled the sweetness of the morning rose and her air 
had healing in it. On the other hand Dean McBarron’s 
smile had broken bones in it, though he fondly assured 
himself he had suppressed every vestige of pain and was 
splendidly good and cheerful. 

“How are you, Old Sunshine?” Miss I. Single (and 
when this new name was pronounced she seldom failed to 
close one eye) delighted to call him this “jolly old name.” 
To her he was an optimist who always saw the cruller 
and not an ironed-out pessimist who saw only the hole 
in the cake. 

“I’m all O. K., and ‘then some,’ ” he chirped. 

“Old Sunshine unadulterated and sweetened with fancy, 
as ever.” 

“Sunshine is easily distributed, if we but think so” he 
added. 

“Do you expect me to be sorry that you are here; or 
sorry for you, — or neither, or both?” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


57 


A row of the best polished ivory was exposed, when 
she lifted the curtains of her warm lips from them. 

“Both or neither.” His eyes rested on her in unfeigned 
delight. She was a joy such as fancy paints in a palace. 
She sat quite close and put her hand soothingly upon his 
brow. At the instant she lifted her eyes to the pier-glass 
and beheld the picture of herself and Dean, — a real liv- 
ing picture of Gospel flesh and blood. She admired her- 
self, but not for the first time. She had been told many, 
many times that she was beautiful beyond all compare, — 
a very dangerous beauty. 

“I thought you had laid away long ago in pickle (not 
gin) your boyhood smile,” she said observing him from 
the glass. The golden afternoon sunlight came through 
the windows like a fluid sea of light and flooded the room, 
and every silver-enameled object laughed in melody as it 
flashed a ray in giddy, intoxicated delight. 

“If you don’t love me, — love me long, sweetheart, I 
crave you will send me an infernal machine, or a package 
of yellow-fever germs, or a few live stegomyia.” 

“Now. That don’t entertain me any more. That’s 
for children.” At the instant she was in dead earnest. 

“Are you pouring cold water on me? I want to 
know.” 

“Come — come, Old Sunshine. You know better than 
to ask that question. I wonder that you did ask it. 
Frankly, I think you should not have asked it. Now, 
what do you think of yourself!” 

“Do you want me to disguise my doubts; or expose 
them in all their nudity? I never have many, but they 


58 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


are gross in bulk when I do have them. I’m not disposed 
to be secretive with my doubts, you know.” 

“You make me smile, dear Old Sunshine. This is not 
the place nor the time for beautiful expressions of fancy, 
nor the occasion for demonstrating or exhibiting in a 
show-window samples of love and handing them out to 
the people.” 

“Do you know that I have a mind to tell you not to 
believe — for one minute — that because you are a woman 
and I a man, I am going to side with you, — simply be- 
cause you are a woman. I know that if I say this, it will 
give you the right to ask — ‘Who told you to love me? 
I am a songstress!’ And then you would compliment 
yourself for having said a smart thing to me, and for 
having very properly offended me. Nicht wahr?” 

“Be careful — ‘careless,’ — or you’ll destroy your good 
rep. for optimism, and people will read the label on you — 
‘This side up; handle with care; glass.’ Then I would 
indeed not love you.” She was dividing her attention 
between him and the glass. 

“True.” He looked out the window as he said this, 
saw the stream of confusion, and felt the power of the 
mill that grinds to powder like the friction of the stones 
in a moraine. 

“But I come not here to talk. You know too well the 
9tory of our thralldom.” She smiled at herself in the 
mirror. 

“Too well.” 

“Have you found him f” 

“No!” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


59 


“Mith Gulliver told me he was going to Chicago.” 
She looked serious for the first time. 

“Told me the same.” 

“Is he here?” 

“If so, he’s carefully concealed,” he answered. 

“Escaped us for the nonce,” she mused. 

“You have heard he’s engaged to the girl of many 
millions?” 

“No!” most stolidly. “But I suspected as much.” 

“She buys a title.” 

“Without a man,” she said bitterly. 

“She should know this fact.” 

“She will know.” 

“How?” 

f TU tell her.” 

Her eyes glazed, her lips met in decision, her voice was 
set and stern, her frame became rigid and intense, she 
was full of unwaveing determination. 

After a pause, and after she had again put her palm 
softly and soothingly on his forehead, giving the impres- 
sion of a clinging touch, she gave her plan: 

“I go at once to Washington City. You I am confi- 
dent will soon be out of this shocking place and follow 
me. Let me know, dear friend, if you need me. I must 
go to-night.” 

She clasped his sound hand. The thrill was always in 
her clasp. It was a sort of magnetic soul charge. It 
brought men to their knees to her, figuratively speaking. 

She arose. Looking what she dare not express in so 
public a place, she pressed his hand, dropped it, and sim- 
ply said: 

“Good bye.” 


CHAPTER VI 


T HEY were sitting on the beach at Atlantic 
City, the afternoon sun mellowing the scene 
into a divine glow, the bathers splashing 
in the comers or stalking upon the shingles 
like some amphibious bipeds not yet dis- 
covered and described by the vigilant naturalist. 

The water, sea-green and peculiar, dreaded as the re- 
lentless realm of Poseidon, mysterious as the source of 
stories such as the “Ancient Mariner” and “The Ballad 
of Carmilhan” by Longfellow, gave Prof. P. Thomas 
Nelson a sense of vastness and might apd fury as he cast 
his meditative eye in Byronic sweep and his fancy-weav- 
ing imagination out upon — far out and over — the broad 
expanse. He could not deny its fascination. He caught 
a momentary glimmer of the sense that moved Byron’s 
pen to conceive so many things about it. 

“Clever Hesperus,” he said addressing the man seated 
near him, an acquaintance extending little beyond that 
formed at summer resorts, “I have long admired the ma- 
jesty and persistence of the sea. I am virtually over- 
whelmed in the contemplation of its magnitude and 
power.” 

“Indeed, my friend, not finding fault, mark you, with 
the Almighty, still I desire to say, I have not been able 
to comprehend why there shold be a necessity for so 
much more water than dry land,” said the fantastic man, 
60 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


61 


Clever Hesperus. He was so perfect and bookish in the 
enunciation of the letters “t” and “d” and “p”, and in 
the over-accent of the final syllables “ed”, “on”, “en”, 
and “st”, that his intimates nicknamed him Mr. Exact. 
Comically fastidious and prim in speech, and exact in 
all things, and finicky and precise to a laughable extent 
at times, he was a refreshing personage and character 
study for Prof. P. Thomas Nelson. One can scarcely 
believe the singularity in this man’s utterance of words. 
He knew it not. Its effect on others was much like that 
of laughing gas. It was so exceedingly well pronounced 
that it exhibited studied and bookish effort rather than 
habitual accuracy. So many facial contortions, puzzling 
to everybody to divine the reasons for, accompanied his 
labored expressions to be bookishly correct. He was not 
a character who won friends by emotion, — emotion had 
all been educated out of him, evaporated into emptiness, 
— but who approved himself to others by his clammy in- 
tellect, — if indeed he ever won genuine sympathetic glow 
from anybody. 

“The sea! — I have always felt when looking on its face, 
when it is not angry, like shouting as did Balboa when 
he first beheld the Pacific,” said Prof. P. Thomas Nelson, 
a concealed smile lurking back in his manly, mobile, noble, 
intellectual face, and his eye suppressing the twinkle that 
would betray him. Not for the world would he be be- 
trayed to Mr. Exact, who was a shrewd-minded fellow 
but an egotist, — of the mild type, however. The Profes- 
sor brought one foot upon his knee with a sudden effort, 
and put his hands behind his head, causing his hat to set- 


62 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


tie close over his eyes. Clever Hesperus looked an exact 
look at him. Nothing. 

An exact man is a critic, of course, and a critic is 
always a bore. 

“I can’t (cawn’t, he said) say that I admire the sea. 
Men drown in it,” he said. 

“Men should not be guilty of such an offense against 
the law of nature.” The Professor smiled jestingly. 

“I perfectly agree with you there, my friend.” So 
exact the letters fairly bounced from his lips with sibilant 
hisses and explosive dissonance and frictional utterance 
and glottorial sound. He trilled the “r” in the word 
“friend” a little excessively. 

All at once in startled haste Prof. P. Thomas Nelson 
sprang up, looked at his watch, and ejaculated: 

“My!” 

“My friend, I do not comprehend you with intelligent 
exactness.” 

“I don’t comprehend myself, I must say.” 

“I do not doubt it.” The “t” at the end of each 
of the last three words was singled out for particularly 
explosive, noisy breathing. 

“I didn’t presume you would.” 

“I could not.” 

“Of course.” 

And the Professor hurried away without any more 
ceremony, leaving Clever Hesperus alone with his exact 
meditations. After a few brisk steps the Professor again 
manifested signs of absent mindedness. He paused with 
a sudden hitch, turned round, hesitated, turned back, 
whirled again, and again turned forward, and then re- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


63 


sumed his walk with feverish step. At first his conscious 
sense was that he had forgotten his hat, but on better evi- 
dence he found it on his head. 

He soon reached the neat summer cottage of ex-Senator 
Wadsworth, occupied now by his wife and daughter. 
Mrs. Wadsworth was a woman of rare excellence and 
smoothe judgment, quite competent to decide for herself 
without being affected with the foolish thought, “What 
will the people say!” 

It was to this cottage that Prof. P. Thomas Nelson 
bent his quick-moving feet. He was already, a little be- 
hind the time agreed upon to take a ride in the auto- 
mobile with Mina herself. Something of a physicultur- 
ist, preferring the Delsarte plan, she had the courage to 
drive the machine herself, and sometimes to go at a furi- 
ous speed-gait. There was a little of the bold dare in 
her blood. 

The afternoon, bending low toward the closing cere- 
mony of day, was splendid for a swift outing. The air 
was balmy and refreshing. The general tone of nature 
was inviting and invigorating. 

The Professor was at her left. The rear seat was un- 
occupied. Was he a love idler, a dangler around the 
torch. 

“Lovely time for speeding a little,” he said, enjoying 
the flight. It seemed they were little more than “hitting 
the high places.” The country fairly swam backward. 
There was no enjoyment in the speed, except the sense 
of wonderful passage through the air. 

“And with muscleless horses that never tire,” main- 
taining a firm, clear view ahead. 


64 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


After a twenty-mile spin through the variegated, crop- 
crowned country, they turned back. There was a pretty 
white line of dusty road ahead, and a swirl of dust hung 
in a long ribbon marking their flight. For a little ways 
they seemed to skim the earth. But for the occasional 
heavy lurches, it might be they were flying through the 
air. The passage was too swift for talk. They were 
hardly permitted to think. The professor wondered how 
long the daring soul at his side would protract the danger- 
ous flight. Was such a spirit of venture perfectly normal ? 
No, he was “not in short, catchy breaths,” if he were 
asking himself as to her normality. 

Now, down the white line ahead stood an automo- 
bile. As they approached nearer, it seemed a breakdown. 
Still nearer, they beheld two young people, perhaps lovers. 
Evidently they were in distress. 

“Somebody in real straits,” he said. They took an 
easier gait. The distress of others is always cautionary. 

“The uncertainty of these machines is a source of un- 
happiness. This uncertainty in some degree spoils the 
fullest enjoyment of the ride.” She applied the idea in a 
general sense. 

“At any rate it means the garage.” 

“Mentally it means the moral reformatory,” she philoso- 
phised. 

Long — more than two years — this man of culture had 
been a shining gallant, and Mina was unable to har- 
monize his silence with his constancy of attentions. He 
was a man of great learning as well as of college titles. 
As a reconteau he shone. But on Master Cupid’s affairs 
he was singularly reticent. Attentions of a special char- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


65 


acter from the Professor were popularly viewed as a 
compliment, but Mina was almost persuaded that he was 
either a trifler or possessed in a small degree the affections 
that move most men. She was half inclined to view him 
as a love defective. 

“Yes,” returned the Professor, “as the Congressman 
said, we never know where we are at when we are out.” 

“Perhaps these people ahead of us are painfully con- 
scious where they are at” 

“In another sense they are, no doubt, wondering where 
they are at” 

“Does any one know where he is at?” 

“In general, no,” he answered. He thought of his 
wish, and she of hers. 

They stopped at the side of the motionless machine. 
An accident of any kind is a real introduction of every- 
body to everybody without ceremony. 

“How are you?” laughingly greeted the Professor, 
alighting from the automobile with a spring that demon- 
strated his athleticism. In fact he was a fine-looking 
man, tall, commanding, a sort of Prof. Wilson, alias 
Christopher North. There was a scholarly cast in his 
face, and his large, great, black eyes, that almost stared at 
times and seemed not to drop their lids together, had an 
effect much like clasped hands drawn apart with a linger- 
ing cling. His hair was black as midnight, and his face 
was dark with an aristocratic sun-bronze. It was, too, the 
bronze of great, abounding good health. 

“How are you, I say?” 

“Anything but moody just now, of course,” laughed 
the young lady. Her liquid voice, giving the sense of a 


66 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


lick with the tongue as an animal licks its young, caused 
the Professor to look. 

She was a lovely woman, almost sinfully beautiful, and 
her face was magnetically charged with a captivating 
smile. Even — even Mina noticed and noted her exceed- 
ing loveliness. 

And the accident seemed not to have perturbed her in 
any appreciable degree. Her partner looked a little sul- 
len, — upset in temper by the unforseen accident; a bet- 
ter manifester of his feelings; of less ability than his lovely 
friend to resist the effects of untoward conditions. 

“I feel very much like pale restaurant soup,” he said. 
She looked at him. 

“Restaurant soup is usually made of a pail of water 
boilt down on both sides, to which is added a single lonely 
bean, and the whole let simmer. If too rich, more water 
is added. The water is then dried and served hot.” 

She looked at him with a gilded twinkle, and passed 
around the dead machine to Mina, who still held to the 
wheel. 

“These birds of passage,” she directed to Mina, “are 
coy and uncertain as woman.” 

Mina was either intently admiring the unselfish beauty 
of the girl, or intently objecting to it as a dangerous pos- 
session. The Professor heard her observation. 

“Of course you will ride back with us,” said Mina in 
practical manner. 

“By your kindness — thanks.” And she at once bounded 
up into the seat beside Mina. A marvelously sweet, frank 
smile illumined her lively face. 

She took a swift, observing look at Mina, and beheld a 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


67 


lovely young woman, richly and modestly dressed, a 
clear, guileless, deep brown eye, a face of rare intellectual 
beauty and refinement and openness, a winning manner, 
and an attractive bodily atmosphere that eludes all de- 
scription. She saw a noble character that she felt she 
could always and a day be friendly with and enjoy. 

“How fortunate that we came up just when we did,” 
said Mina. She was not unconscious that her idea had 
other faces. 

“Better to be born lucky than rich,” and the smile 
expanded into a ripple of laughter. 

“Your name?” queried Mina. 

“My name! It matters not. A rose by any other 
name, and so forth. They call me Miss I. Single.” She 
laughed. And so did Mina. It was an odd name. 

“I never heard such a name before.” 

“No?” 

“My name is Mina Wadsworth.” For one brief in- 
stant, turgid with surprise, Miss I. Single stared — stared 
at her. The act took the form of suspicion in Mina’s 
mind. 

“I am pleased to meet you. I’ve heard of you. I hope 
we will know each other better.” 

“Is your stay here brief?” inquired Mina. 

“Not necessarily. But I’m whimsical.” 

This was said with a mocking smirk that was meant 
to deny her words. Miss I. Single was in fact seeking 
Mina. How fortunate the incident that threw then to- 
gether so informally. She had a great secret for Mina. 
Selfishness actuated her, but she anticipated no benefits. 
By the double process of mind that everybody exercises 
5 


68 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


she was congratulating herself on the automobile mis- 
hap , thankful that misfortune had thrown them together 
on the public road instead of social formality in a circle of 
people. The bars of reserve never exist where accident 
throws people together. Mina knew nothing of what 
was in Miss I. Single’s mind and heart. 

The two men had not progressed so rapidly in linking 
inner emotional arms. They were yet groping round 
to find each other in the social midnight, — strangers still. 
The glum fellow maintained his reserve and clamminess. 
The Professor, extremely sensitive, wished to know no 
man who did not exhibit an equal desire to know him. 
He so far had existed without him, and he presumed the 
future would not be particularly dreary should the taci- 
turn fellow’s personality not be thrust into his life. But 
he was generous in thought and feeling, and perfectly 
willing to meet any one half way in establishing and rati- 
fying social treaties. 

“Mikado,” called Miss I. Single, “come here.” In a 
freakish instant she once nicknamed Mith Gulliver her 
Mikado, and since then she called him that oftener than 
his real name. “Unless you are convinced the machine 
is simply playing ’possum and will run away if you leave 
it, come here.” 

“O, no. I say I think it’s quite dead.” He approached, 
followed by Prof. P. Thomas Nelson. “I’m positive it’s 
quite dead. And when I’ve made up my mind, it would 
better be dead, I say. For when I’ve made up my mind 
about a thing, it is about as cleverly near the real fact as 
it is possible to be.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


69 


Well, Professor, you need not wish to know much of 
this untutored individuality. 

“Mr .Mikado, I have great pleasure in introducing you 
to Miss Wadsworth.” The effusiveness told him some- 
thing. As an undercorated detective his aliases were many, 
but he would not have corrected his name now had she 
called him Mr. Hog. 

“Pleased to meet you — indeed I am. I’ve heard of you 
before; I say I’ve heard of you before. Your great popu- 
larity has preceded you, you know. Very glad, indeed I 
am, to meet you — to have this very great pleasure.” 

The fellow’s egotism made all necessary lies no lies to 
him, as the German folk saying has it. Clever lies were 
moral achievements. 

Mina looked at him, half pained, half wondering. Was 
he quite level, or was he playing deep, shrewd, mysterious, 
unfathonable pleasantry. Did he regard everybody as 
simple minded as the Rudder Grangers? She suspected 
him. Something put her on the defensive, and she was 
ever thereafter within her fortifications when he was 
present. 

“Prof. Nelson, Miss I. Single,” Mina said as soon as 
the egotist and liar subsided. 

Mr. Mikado, Prof. Nelson,” said Miss I. Single. 
“And now all minds being relieved, let us be dismissed. 
Hop in, gentlemen, while yet the door of mercy is open.” 

Miss I. Single was in a giddy good mood. Prof. Nel- 
son at once saw, not only an exquisitely gowned, beautiful 
woman, of uncommon vivacity and not a little contempt 
for men, but a smart, gay, giddy, queenly Emilia. She 
was apparently absorbed and misled by dress, perhaps 


70 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


foolish about what she wore. She was not aware that 
William Allen Butler had cleverly satirized “Nothing 
to Wear.” In his calm, mature judgment she suffered 
very much in comparison with Miss Wadsworth — lost in 
native gift of mental strength and so of sound views of 
life. Her round pearl eyes, bordering on the dark, were 
sharp, laughing, flashing, cutting, tender, capable of dis- 
tressing meanness. There was a heroic strength in her 
young red lips, and a winning grace and captivating smile 
that kissed the beholder; an abandon and daring in her 
firm chin ; a nose that sneers and defies and braves, — 
perhaps a little impudent. Blond ined hair that was heavy 
and full and puffy. A trim figure — more than that — a 
perfect form for a model, lithe, elegant, divine; not tall, 
not short, not stout, but round and complete — something 
that men love and carry away with them. Still, there 
were some elements about her, as about every one, that 
could not be accepted except on approval. 

Mina saw, with no intent of seeing, that Prof. Nelson 
was furtively summarizing Miss I. Single’s natural as- 
sets, and she wondered what the notes were upon his 
mental notebook. The conversation went right on. 

“Your remarks, Miss I. Single — beg pardon for the 
shoppish remark — suggest Hawthorn’s railroad to the 
Celestial City,” said the Professor in a tentative manner. 

“Eh! How?” There was cunning in her arch con- 
fusion at the enforced confession of ignorance. She was 
not difficult to read. She was plainly written in Eng- 
lish, and not in the wedge-shaped characters upon the 
bricks found at Babylon, Mosel, and Ninevah. 

“You speak of going, and Hawthorn has a fanciful 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


7i 


train going to Paradise. And, too, Macdonald, the tem- 
perance candidate once for President, had in his almanac 
a picture of a visionary train to Hades.” 

It was her great and proud ambition to make conquests 
of fine-looking men, and every thought had a man in it 
kneeling in love to her. She knew that all men are sus- 
ceptible to the soft whispers of Oberon. 

For her conquest of this careful, shy man, the ride back 
into Atlantic City was far too short. She was perfectly 
assured as to the relationship existing between him and 
Mina, and she set it down at once that he was a dangler 
after her. But as to the extent of his conquest of the 
acropolis of her heart she could of course not divine. 
She was decidedly pleased to see this state of things. It 
was a possible way of forestalling the unhappy schemes of 
the wily, unprincipled Nero Pensive. So she was less par- 
ticular about captivating even the passing fancy of Prof. 
Nelson. She had not the shadow of a doubt but she could 
do it. She was formulating plans by that dual process of 
mind for circumventing her enemy, even while seeming 
quite gay and featherheaded to the Professor. 

Darkness had shut out the day now, as if some monster, 
some heartless creature of Frankenstein, had erased all 
light from nature by a magic touch. 

Mina and Miss I. Single, alone, were seated near an 
arc-light, around which a vast multitude of insects circled 
in the confusion of light-madness. 

“An illustration of humanity seeking more light,” ob- 
served Mina. 

“Men or moths around the Emilias,” said Miss I. Sin- 
gle, carelessly assuming a tone of philosophical heresy. “I 


72 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


see you have moths around you, — if the flash of the dia- 
mond on your finger means anything.” 

She was feeling her way. That might be a gift of the 
Professor; and it might be of Nero. Mina shuddered, 
and she could not conjure up a reason for it. At the 
same time, and without warrant, she put the sparkling 
stone beneath her other hand and laughed. Mina forced 
herself to believe, on a careful analysis a little afterward 
of her act, that she giggled — not laughed. This annoyed 
her. 

“I shall not deny or affirm.’ ’ 

“Perhaps it means a trip to Europe as Miss and a re- 
turn as Mrs. Nero Pensive, wife of the ‘Earl.’” 

She was feeling. A singular emphasis curled her lips 
as she uttered the name “Earl,” and Mina quickly per- 
ceived it. Then Miss I. Single knew him, and knew 
something of him. Ah! Perhaps now she would hear 
great things of him. There was a pleasure in the thought. 
It was a bit of good fortune to have met this young lady. 

“Perhaps. Who knows,” disposed herself to query and 
prolong the farce. Her shrug might affirm or deny, as 
you like. She went on: “I like Paris very much, and 
have long said I would be married there rather than in my 
native country.” She could not know the effect of her 
words. 

“It is a splendid ambition,” said Miss I. Single with a 
latent sneer. “To marry some nice young man and set- 
tle down to a beautiful home and a nice lot of kids!” 

In her mind she was saying that if this noble, grand 
young lady should marry the “Earl,” it would be “cruelty 
to animals,” and their punishment would be equal to their 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


73 


sin against gallant nature and social ethics. “They’ll both 
be stung,” she commented mentally. 

“When I marry, it will not be to disprove or confirm 
President Roosevelt’s race suicide theory,” said Mina in a 
tone meant to reproach all mercenary marriages and all 
unions for convenience. “I believe in the love marriage 
most emphatically, and I shall never marry, if, etc., from 
any other motive.” 

Miss I. Single looked at her, searching for the truth 
that lay beneath and independent of her expression, and 
wondered whether she was firm and peculiar enough to 
make her formed words a compass and guide and bond 
for her life. No doubt of the mental and emotional force 
of the girl, nor that at this moment she firmly meant what 
she had pronounced. But what would she do under other 
conditions the next moment. 

One more thing the opera singer craved now, the one 
thing she had come to find out, and that was whether this 
sweet, pure, good, strong-souled young lady actually loved 
the “Earl.” And this would be revealed by her uncon- 
scious little acts and not her words. And acts are capable 
of so various interpretations. But whether Mina did or 
didn’t, Miss I. Single, known in stageland as Clarissa 
Harlow, had vowed a vow that henceforth she would de- 
feat the man at every turn he made in life. Hers was a 
deadly and eternal feud and she had ample reasons for 
her hatred. But reasons and justification of conduct are 
vastly different things. 

“The Earl is a very complaisant fellow,” she said, 
looking searchingly into the depths, the very arcanum, of 
Mina’s soul. 


1 \ 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“No doubt of it.” 

“He is said to have titles and great wealth?” inquired 
the new-found acquaintance. 

“I have heard as much.” Mina was now perfectly 
assured of the pump. It was gliding into the comedy. 

“He has a brother, I’m told, at present in the House of 
Commons.” 

At this Mina “sat up and took notice,” and Miss I. 
Single quickly observed the note of interest. 

“I had not heard it,” subsiding. 

“No?” 

“No!” 

Miss I. Single imagined she observed a pinch of pain 
on Mina’s brow, and a look of wonder in her eyes, and a 
faint tint of white on her lips. That was all. 

“Yes. His brother is a real flesh and blood member of 
Parliament,” Miss I. Single said. 

At this juncture in the conversation, just when Miss 
I. Single was about to triumph in her object, Mr. Clever 
Hesperus came upon the scene and interrupted the revela- 
tion. How unfortunate! How stupid in him! But how 
could he know. And if he had known, would they be 
assured he would not have done the same thing? 

He lifted his hat, and begged in intonations that fairly 
caused Mina to scream with laughter: 

“I beg you, ladies, pardon me. I assure you it has 
been by no design that I intrude. I hope I do not obtrude 
myself on you. Will you be fair and tell me, or diploma- 
tic?” 

“Indeed no,” said Miss I. Single. It is unfortunate 
that her name can not be written always just what it is. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


75 


“Welcome, sir,” said Mina sincerely. 

“I thank you with abundant thanks, ladies,” bowing 
very low. 

The fellow was a bachelor, thirty-one years old, fi- 
nancially limited to the moderate comforts of life, and 
he went about approving himself to no one in the man- 
ner he would like to be approved. He was too cleverly 
precise to win favor, and he never doffed his dignity long 
enough to discover himself, — who or what he was, or con- 
clude that he might be nothing in the long run. He was 
not even cleverly eccentric, or good-naturedly unconscious. 
He never failed to profess absolute correctness of him- 
self and to go entirely by rule, — correct in his faith, honor, 
honesty, duty, acts, words, deeds, feelings, when every- 
body doubted him. No one could present a fact that was 
an absolute stranger to him. He was too accurate to be 
accurate. Seating himself near them he looked up at 
the light, but did not see it, and said : 

“I am a very precise man, ladies, and I always make it 
a point to speak to ladies and look directly at them when 
speaking.” His eyes came down from the light to their 
faces. 

“Just so,” said Miss I. Single so solemnly that Mina 
concealed a smile by turning away. 

“Poor man,” thought Mina, “to regulate his life by 
rule, and by that method regulate out of it all sweetness 
that flows from hearty, honest emotion.” 

The man was tall and thin, due to regularity and rule 
and the jugernaut of self-criticism, no doubt in some mea- 
sure, so thin that a wind would fairly blow through him. 
He had been so regular in his habits that he developed 


76 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


dyspepsia and pretty nearly regulated himself out of the 
world. 

“I have been complimented, ladies, for my fine abilities 
to manage large commercial enterprises. A phrenologist 
once told me I could carry anything to a successful is- 
sue.” 

“No doubt. And he knew,” assented Miss I. Single. 
Both young ladies wondered. For one thing to his credit, 
his speech was suggestive and set one to thinking. Mina 
wondered whether he had any sharply defined mental 
qualities beyond his egotism. He had evidently not profit- 
ed by his “very great managerial qualities,” and she won- 
dered whether he had not managed everything to death 
commercially as he had matrimonially — managed business 
dead, managed love out of the home, managed happiness 
by rule, and managed emotions by the double rule of three 
or some other mathematical formula. 

“Now, I am prepared to say I am no egotist,” he be- 
gan. But his speech was interrupted by the approach of 
Prof. Nelson. The conversation ran on. 

“I heard a certain woman once say,” interposed the 
Professor, when expectation invited his speech, “that she 
was so perfect she couldn’t do a wrong, and therefore 
couldn’t acknowledge she ever did a wrong, for accord- 
ing to her casuistry that would be a lie and therefore a 
sin. Her logic was good, whatever her practice. The 
perfect one is essentially a selfish and egotistical nature, — 
willing to lay all blame on the other one, who of 
course is less perfect and therefore more liable to error, 
and unwilling to lay any blame on beautiful and per- 
fect and lovely self.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


77 


“Uncharitable.” One word gave full expression to 
Mina’s thought. 

Miss I. Single was auribus erectus, on the alert to de- 
tect the slightest hint suggestive of the real relationship 
of Mina and Prof. Nelson. But her diligence and keen 
exercise of her uncultivated detective faculties discov- 
ered nothing that had either a positive or a negative char- 
acter. Mina was not consciously or unconsciously con- 
fessing just then anything to her new acquaintance. She 
was still less willing to convey anything to her about Earl 
Nero Pensive, though she confessed she wished to hear 
what this girl knew about him. She was almost confi- 
dent there was some story behind all. It was not proper 
to remain taciturn. She half surmised that silence would 
be interpreted to mean more than would be true or pleas- 
ant, — perhaps distorted in a confession absolutely false. 

“Uncharitable,” the Professor echoed. 

“Uncharitable,” mimicked Miss I. Single. 

Clever Hesperus sat in mathematical silence. 

The conversation was not prolonged after the Pro- 
fessor came. He walked with Miss I. Single and Clever 
Hesperus with Mina. Mina arrived home first. 

No state of feeling or fact developed in their walks that 
had any bearing upon this story. 

Mina retired with her mother. She was a mother of 
whom Mina was proud and who was proud of her daugh- 
ter. 

The Professor bade Miss I. Single good-night at her 
cottage door, without the usual preliminary fringes, and 
hurriedly walked away. 


CHAPTER VII 


66 


Y 


ES, I’m going to Philadelphia, — I say 
I’m going to Philadelphia.” 

Mith Gulliver, one of whose aliases 
was St. Townsen, addressed Miss I. 

Single. It was news to her. It was 
the morning succeeding the automobile breakdown. The 
young lady addressed was on the front step of the cot- 
tage she occupied, putting on her gloves. The fellow 
was standing near and in front of her. 

She had no suspicion of his treachery. He was a paid 
spy in her service, and he professed great fealty to her. 
At that very moment his plan was to go to New York 
and report his latest about Clarissa to her unfaithful 
friend, the “Earl,” and include what he knew about 
Mina. 


“To Philadelphia! What for?” looking intently at 
him, surprise transfiguring her countenance. She rubbed 
the finger of the glove a little more briskly to press it 
into place. “You know me, and you know my faithful 
service to you,” glancing up into her eyes a single sec- 
ond. “You know, I say, I must find out about the Earl 
for you, and I have a tip that he is there. And you know 
I never do things till I do them, and I can’t tell you 
for certain till I see him and know. And so you see, Miss 
I. Single,” glancing round as if from sheer instinctive and 
professional habit of precaution, “you see I’m going to 

78 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


79 


Philadelphia at once to find out by ascertaining if he is 
there — see! He must not know, see, that I’m piping 
him.” 

“When shall I hear from you again?” 

“As soon as — as — as — I must find my man, you see. 
And if I have to follow a clue and run him down, in Chi- 
cago or San Francisco, or where not, I say I always do 
it, you know. I never fail, — I never have, I never will. 
I’m right there.” 

“See here, Mith — ” 

“Sh-sh-sh — ,” putting his fingers on his lips and look- 
back at the door and windows. It was a work of su- 
pereorgation. No one had heard his name “Mith,” when 
she pronounced it. He knew that. It was not dread; it 
was caution. 

“See here, Mith,” disregarding his precautions, “I want 
square deals. I need no warrants of your efficiency and 
fidelity, nothing but the information I pay you for.” 

“Sure I understand. You want to know — know all 
about it — know the whole truth — know nothing but the 
truth. Yes, I say, I understand. I never miss fire. I’m 
always where least expected (no doubt of it) and at the 
right moment. I say, I understand.” 

“I want no clues; I want facts” She had corrected the 
wrinkle in her glove finger. 

“Sure. No clues, no guesses, all facts — facts.” 

“Success. Good-bye.” 

H is bow had something of the mercenary in it, and the 
flanges of his knee joints were not stiff. 

“Good-bye,” he endeavored to smile back as he fairly 
fell down in his haste. His glassy blue eyes gave forth 


8o 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


a note that jars on the conscious essence of most people. 
He did not mean to be repellent, but he was and he knew 
it not ; and if he had, he could not have corrected it. 

He was in the service of Nero Pensive. First he was 
to prevent Clarissa Harlow from finding him, and next 
he was to find Dean McBarron for him. Clarissa Harlow 
engaged him to locate Nero Pensive for her and not re- 
veal Dean McBarron to Nero. It required an efficient liar 
to fill so difficult double position. He was a competent 
man for the job. 

Nero Pensive was consumed with desire to be with 
Miss Mina Wadsworth at Atlantic City, and he had re- 
called Mith simply to find out more about the real situ- 
ation there. He was not competent to find pleasure in 
many things; blase was already in his blood. He found 
a small degree of stimulus in gambling and leading a fast 
and gay life; and it was his habit when he lost heavily to 
booze heavily. In a moral sense he was a dangerous man 
to be allowed to run loose among the pure, innocent, de- 
cent, mind-clean, heart-white young ladies, for he had 
no belief in anything good, was skeptical, false, selfish, un- 
principled, but — polite. That was the best could be said 
of him. He was a dashing, reckless, careless man, un- 
concerned for reputation or popular opinion or private 
opinion A double at times, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 
— he was “the limit.” His was an unqualified life; and 
he was only thirty years old. Money had enabled him to 
exhaust himself and all there was worth while in life in 
his brief span. The rest — what was it! What was it 
not! 

But his personality was not the repellent pole, setting 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


81 


others instinctively in opposition to him, for he was com- 
panionable when he chose. It was a dangerous compan- 
ionship for ladies. His latest hobby was to collect naughty 
novels. 


CHAPTER VIII 


P ROFESSOR P. Thomas Nelson was on the 
pinnacle of intellectual delight, when he 
was in a discussion of lighter literature with 
Mina Wadsworth. 

On the morning that Clarissa Harlow was 
saying good-bye to Mith Gulliver on her cottage steps, in 
a decisive, business-like manner, Mina and Prof. Nelson 
were coasting leisurely along the beach, so to speak, now 
and then jostling elbows in the careless saunter. It was 
a beautiful, sunny day. The waves dashed up in their 
eternal unrest, and strove with the shingles. The sky 
had a divine blue in it, and its restfulness was in severe 
and icy contrast with the waters below. It was ever the 
old story of the firmament and the waters beneath. They 
were eternal facts that occupied the Creator’s mind. God 
was still present in his works. 

“Who is your best story teller?” he asked. The ques- 
tion was not abrupt. The conversation preceding naturally 
suggested it. 

“Among the Americans, — and America first forever, — 
I can’t omit Harold Frederick. I know he has not strode 
into popularity with a sort of Frankenstein-monster tread, 
but I like the splendor of his force and his trenchant sen- 
tences and his stories that glow.” Mina was serious in 
this. 

“Where do you class Bertha Runkle?” 

82 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


S3 


“In the literary attic.” 

“Of course one who can’t write a successful story, can’t 
successfully criticise one,” the Professor argued. “Now, 
your story, ‘The Nobility of Love,’ met with popular 
favor at once, and therefore you are competent to speak,” 
he said, thrusting a thumb in his side coat-pocket and 
glancing at her. He was swayed by a dubious movement 
of emotion within. 

“That! O that story! I never had any confidence in 
its sanity or its need for being. It was too trifling to be 
serious or worth while.” 

“It is a real, unobjectionable, carefully told story, and 
unlike most ephemeral stories of the hour that deal with 
the unhappy and the moral derelicts it is a pleasing, noble, 
elevating story eliminating moral criminology and deal- 
ing with happiness as a motif.” 

“Is that the way it touched you, Professor?” looking 
at him, pleased with his delicate criticism. 

“It did more. But your motif was what appealed 
strongest to me. It was a great lesson in genuine hap- 
piness up to date. Melissa was a sweet, redeeming char- 
acter in it, and she was a born optimist, it seemed to me. 
Some stories paint the wrong, and in that way teach the 
right. Yours dealt positively with psychological, sub- 
liminal happiness, as I read it.” 

“I had an idea when I wrote that, I wish to say, that I 
could teach negatively the good of life by presenting con- 
trasting moral defectives and erroneous motives in the 
personae. The style of the person, the spirit and char- 
acter of the story, the atmosphere of the life revealed, 
and the blessings of both good character and good sur- 

6 


8 4 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


roundings were ever present when I wrote.” Her feet 
seemed lighter somehow. 

“Did you have a real person in mind, when you drew 
the lovely, perfect Melissa?” He thought of herself. 

“No. She is a composite being, — all of whom are real 
and living to-day.” 

“The wind of commercial -made popular favor has blown 
the common, slight stories of the day into a farcical atti- 
tude. No stories of this day have the sentimentalism of 
Scott, Miss Porter, Miss Austen, Miss Bronte, Mrs. 
Roche, even Mr. Holland, and very many more. Eternal 
love is the one and only permanent element in any endur- 
ing tale, — not the style, not the great wisdom of the wri- 
ter. As for his wisdom, there have been wise men before 
him. And his egotism is stale, unenthusiastic, uninspiring 
stuff. Usually it is ice put upon fire.” 

“Go on, Professor.” 

“Literature now has a sort of smart Alecky twang, and 
it leaves a false taste. Nobody wants to read essays, or 
sermons, or economic problems, or scientific discussions, 
or psychologic analyses, or sociologic disquisitions in stor- 
ies. These he can get in special volumes upon these 
subjects. But he in truth wants to read about intrigues, 
love dilemmas, private lives of neighbors, and the manly 
love of the hero and the beautiful character of her who 
from the beginning was cut out for him.” 

“There is no question of that,” said Mina, turning 
to glance back for no reason. Women do this ever since 
the time of Lot’s unfortunate wife. She did not pause 
in her thought. “That is the one vital element in Mrs. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 85 

Southworth’s stories. Her splendid spontaneity, I think, 
adds to their exceeding great and popular charm.” 

“There is much in spontaneity, all allow, but not all 
in that, I take it. Now, Pere Loti just wrote. He seem- 
ingly didn’t struggle to quote others, lug in his much 
reading, or interlard his pages with classical names or 
classical allusions as was the style at no far-off day 
among the poets, or convey his reader just to the margin 
of his wide knowledge of facts or psychology, or tell you 
of his own self importance. To be sure he had or gave 
careful attention to the aristocracy of his language, of his 
ideas, of his incidents, though his characters might be of 
the good humble people.” 

“And I agree perfectly with you, if you care to know 
my view. I think the eternality of love the one inex- 
haustible theme for all novelists for all time. Love is 
universal, unalterable; language changes.” She knew not 
why she said this. She looked at the golden sunlight upon 
the green grass, and felt disposed to blush. She thought 
when he spoke of the “eternality of love” that his idea 
was absolutely abstract, while in fact it was more concrete 
than the context implied. 

And in his mind he wondered why she made the “eter- 
nality of love” so marked. Was it the microbe of love 
disturbing the even tenor of his thoughts and riling the 
springs of his emotions as the angel troubled the water of 
the pool of Bethesda, or was it simply “a theory and not 
a condition that confronted him.” He was in doubt, and 
doubt is heresy in all cases relating to the beautiful, re- 
fined, elevating emotions of love. Doubt! Her smile 
might be an avant coureur of splendid heart loneliness, 


86 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


and again it might be an ebullition of her instinctive 
loveliness and sweetness, and yet again it might be her 
great good sense that lifted away the shadowy and darted 
a ray into the mystic world of love and life. 

Rumor had borne it to his ears, and it was no pleasant 
news to him of course, that Mina Wadsworth was en- 
gaged to wed a “Lord” of some kind ; and since the femin- 
ine season was on at the watering places he wondered why 
the “Lord” was not in evidence, contributing to their 
mutual pleasure. She seems, he was led timidly, tenta- 
tively to conceive, to be not much concerned about him, 
for she never alludes to him. He could not conceive, 
however, that conscious silence implies perfect under- 
standing. His reflections were not sumptuous. Out of a 
mutinous idea, a thought in rebellion against the uncer- 
tainty of her relations to the “Lord,” a resolution was 
born to know from her own lips his standing in her estima- 
tion. “Estimation” was his word. He still thought of 
her in intellectual terms rather than emotional. Of course 
the rumor of her probable marriage to the “Earl” was 
whispered only in the exclusive clubs, the fashionable 
boudoirs, and the embassies in Washington city, but at 
her summer home in Walpole gossip was quite busy with 
the rumor. Putting aside the intrepidity of his thought, 
as it might seem to her and as it did seem to him, he 
nevertheless decided to know her mind and heart then and 
there. 

“I should think,” he began, “that the proposals and love 
scenes in your book were transcripts of your own experi- 
ence, — they had the essence of reality in them.” 

“Of course one never writes what one don’t know, — 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 87 

can’t,” she replied archly. The response seemed to block 
his game. 

“Were you able to tinge the reality with a little of the 
paint of imagination, or did your pen picture fall short of 
the facts?” 

“I can say as to my own impression that the pen picture 
does not parallel the reality.” 

“I have no experimental knowledge of love,” said he. 
It was a serious statement, and might be construed quite 
uncomplimentary of him. 

“Indeed,” smiled Mina. 

“Truly.” But his look denied his assertion. He re- 
sumed. “I was saying that I believe that love, and the 
smile, the kiss, the clock, the bell, the sun, the wind, the 
noise, the horse, human emotions, human motion, and 
many other things, speak the same language everywhere, — 
d sort of Esperanto. And love is more universal in 
mimetic speech than any other human emotion, and is per- 
haps as expressive as anger.” 

“Love sent anywhere C. O. D. would no doubt be 
promptly paid for, — -redeemed.” A logical dalliance 
gleamed from her eyes in an arch manner that would 
have suggested something to anybody but the love-stupid 
Professor; a halo of anticipation was in her half-parted 
lips ; a faint shadow of Griselda seriousness upon her brow ; 
and a speculative dilemma nested in the corners of her 
dimpled cheek. The Professor, a splendid-hearted man, 
was in the murky semblance of a nightmare dream, and 
could not see anthing — nothing! He stupidly mistrusted 
that broker of promises, Sir Cupid Love, and he feared, — 
feared what! Her last words had the joyous thrill of se- 


88 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


crecy about them, — like a first loveletter, or a private con- 
fidential note of first love in the first diary. And still he 
refused to read. It was an affair not all his own, and his 
sense of respect for the heart secret of another forbade his 
peeping over the shoulder. But the truth is, he was a dull 
pupil in the school of love, and was not skilled enough to 
run as he read. It was a painful delight. 

Did love, real love, Mina had often wondered, ever 
take a new tack? Its methods vary with each one, but the 
emotions of love are the same since the days when Adam 
told Eve he loved her. No one knows in what language 
Adam conveyed his frenzied love! And what is love, 
anyway? A definition will give us no clear understand- 
ing, because it is wholly an emotional matter, not intel- 
lectual. Love is simply the emotional element of selection. 

“I presume love sent C. O. D. would be promptly met 
and received,” said he. 

“Except by defective, delinquent, dependent lovers,” 
she amended. She could not defend herself in this bold 
dalliance and frank banter with him, and did it out of 
pure mischief (do you believe it?) rather than — what? 

What seemed to others to be an idle stroll upon the 
shaly beach was in truth a farcical love affair, in which a 
love dummy would not see, think, hear, or feel. She was 
disposed to reprobate herself very seriously for her in- 
defensible liberty in conversation with him, nor was she 
inclined to excuse her rather leading talk. She had never 
been guilty of the like before in her very proper life. For one 
moment she thought she felt miserable about this aban- 
doned talk, as the word was at the moment in her mind, 
and possessed of depressing fear and shame she dragged 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 89 

her shoe-toe heavily in the gravel for one single step. Then 
the self-condemnation had passed. 

In every life there are inconsistencies ; and there should 
be, under the divine law of opposites. Mina knew this as 
well as the professor, but the knowledge did not grant 
unwarranted privileges on that account. The restraint 
was still a veil upon their hearts. 

He looked around with an expression beseeching help; 
all his thoughts seemed to be as commonplace as sin; yet 
every idea, however rough and unhewn, lay sure and true 
in his heart. His weakness was, he had to browbeat him- 
self into doing some things. He allowed he was scarcely 
like other men. His thoughts! — nothing comes being so 
nearly nothing as a thought. How evanescent ! How per- 
ishable! How easily forgotten and lost forever! And 
when forgotten or lost, what reality has departed from us ? 
Anything? Nothing! And is love, for which all the 
world moves, — is love a whimsical thought, or a mere 
flimsy and evanescent emotion! He was not in a mood 
to question or defend anything. Love is contagious from 
the eyes. Love is a dream. Love is rythmic reality. Love 
is a sham. Love is a nothing. Love is everything. Love 
is the basis of the universe. Love is divine. Love is a 
blessing. Love is a curse. Love is a vague delusion. Love 
smiles. Love ennobles. Love leads to heaven. Of course. 

“Is love a banter?” he asked after a conscienceless pause 
and dreary silence, when nothing was heard but their foot- 
steps and the waves and the wind, — all hollow mockeries 
then. 

“No indeed,” she quickly answered. 

“Are you ever serious in love matters?” 


90 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Never so much so in my life as then.” 

It seemed he was at last “worked up to the point.” She 
caught his spirit motion. To be sure, then, she was not 
prepared to intercept his declaration, she impulsively, 
trembling confessed to herself. He was a “fine young 
man,” without a flaw physically, mentally, emotionally. 
She became unreasonably alarmed. She looked hurriedly 
around as if seeking some hole of exit. It depressed her 
that she had precipitated upon herself what she so richly 
deserved. The Earl took no part in her commotion, but 
she was not in a mood to give herself body and soul to this 
noble man. She was; she wasn’t. What would she do! 
To accept him for a life partner — not to-day, whatever 
she might do to-morrow. She had been dallying along 
with a fancy that was no more than a will-o’-the-wisp, 
and now she was lost in the marsh in the inky darkness 
alone. She had, it seemed, tempted the timid man up to 
the point of a proposal — worried him into it. Now she 
was not ready to abide by her own folly, committed with 
wide-open eyes in broad daylight in the twentieth century. 
Why, what sort of creature was she? 

Suddenly some one called to her from an oriole window 
all bedecked with beautiful flowers and rich laces on the 
inside. It came like an angel’s voice from heaven to a 
lonely, distressed soul. And then she frowned. Why 
did the voice interrupt so sweet and unusual situation ! 
How closely heaven lies to hades! 

“Miss Wadsworth! Miss Wadsworth!” 

And down the steps rushed Miss I. Single, tripping 
spiritedly as a school girl, smiling gayly in animated greet- 
ing. It was an astonishment to the two self-absorbed 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


9i 


lovers, and she tumbled down upon them like a swift 
meteor from the sky. Welcome! — not welcome! Glad to 
see you! — avaunt! 

“O, you two look like veteran lovers,” she shrilled out, 
“joshing” them on their serenity. 

“And is that criminal?” he smiled in undaunted an- 
swer. 

“You really make my cheeks feel rosy red,” Mina ob- 
jurgated in half interrogatory fashion. 

“Telltale blushes,” said Miss I. Single. 

“Not all blushes are confessions,” said Mina. 

At that moment Clever Hesperus and Peter Wilkins, 
an old ex-lover of Mina and still her admirer at long range 
and her friend at all hazards, approached them from the 
front. Both bowed, but Peter gave his a commedian air 
of probity and seriousness. Then he said, a grin as ample 
as Oscar Wilde’s sunflower view of esthetics decorating 
his meagre physiognomy: 

“Smile, — and smile, — and still smile. That’s all I have 
to do now in my old age. (He was but twenty-five). 
Simply be happy, — but be happy. I believe in the theory 
and the fact of smiling.” Peter was a reputed humorist, 
and withal a fine fellow. 

“I have a desire to say,” said Clever Hesperus in a 
painfully exact manner, lifting his thin, pale hand to his 
round brow and drawing a finger across his forehead just 
beneath his white panama hat in abstract habit, “I repeat, 
I have a desire to say that the question of happiness is a 
very large one, and was the chief concern of our first par- 
ents in the Garden of Eden.” He looked as if he thought 
he had said something very smooth, hard, and polished. 


92 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


The walk was continued, and the conversation was di- 
rected to no one in particular nor limited to any special 
line of thought. It was fragmentary, straggling, 
inconsequent. It is needless to repeat the harmless chaf- 
fer that flowed with bubbles and gurgles like champagne. 
Nothing could be glum or shadowy where Peter Wilkin’s 
vegetated. Mr. Exact was an entity of cold, cold intel- 
lect, entirely without personal feeling, and, practically im- 
pervious to offense, he construed no condition into comedy. 
Miss I. Single did not hesitate to gurgle, — “it was so 
funny, this idea of happiness.” 

“Men are ever building higher moral as well as mental 
Babels or skyscrapers to ascend to the skies of happiness,” 
said Prof. P. Thomas Nelson, altering his subject more 
readily than his broken-into emotions, “but I believe they 
mistake. It occurs to me now that much of the ideal of 
the day, the theory being that the ideal is the goal of hap- 
piness, is unideal — refined beyond the normal, — a mistaken 
ideal. The natural is the ideal.” 

“Happiness and misery are co-ordinate,” said Peter 
Wilkins, the gravity of his look exceeding the limits of 
decorum, “especially when a delicate, delicious morsel you 
are lifting to a watering palate misses its destination and 
falls to the ground. You catch the drift of my argument, 
I hope. It is very significant that you do. Otherwise 
it might affect my mens sana in corpore sano ." 

There was a laugh. Then Mina said, trenching dan- 
gerously near psychology: 

“Most people provoke themselves to anger, or make the 
conditions that do provoke them.” 

“Men are laying the flattering unction to their souls that 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


93 


they are rescuing the subject of heredity from oblivion.” 
said the Professor, “but they are simply danglers upon the 
shore of truth, while the great undiscovered infinite ocean 
lies before them. The study of the day is the association 
of intellects, the association of hearts, the association of 
persons, the association of fortunes, the association of bus- 
iness, the association of purpose, and their results, and 
the conviction seems to be that kismet seals everything.” 

“I’m sure that Miss Wadsworth’s no was kismet to me.” 
said Peter Wilkins, blinking his eyes as if he had been hit 
on the head. 

“You naughty spendthrift with your tongue,” shouted 
Mina, shying a frolicksome look at him. 

“An open confession — ” 

“Permit me to say in all candor and with all the pre- 
cision I can, that if Miss Wadsworth said no to you, she 
meant it in dead earnest,” and Mr. Exact simply turned 
to Mina as if he had paid her an exquisite compliment. 
He was radiant. 

“I’m at sea without a rudder,” said Miss I. Single. 
The Professor concluded his thought in these words : 

“We all are. Now, opportunity is given to every one 
by environment, but environment doesn’t give brain facul- 
ties. Every one has two sets of faculties, opposites to be 
sure, and environment but develops or exercises the one 
or the other, as the case may be, and that is all. Environ- 
ment can not recreate, or remodle, or alter the natural 
gifts or qualities, or destroy bad impulses, or remove de- 
fects or taints, or add new essences of nature and in so 
far make another and a new being, — it doesn’t change the 
being. It may give the chance to develop the one and keep 


94 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


the other in abeyance. What every one is, is registered 
in eternity; what one does is recorded on his memory. It is 
not a new idea to have registered human stock.” 

“Now, I perfectly and absolutely agree with the pro- 
fessor, though I know nothing about it,” said the good- 
humored Peter Wilkins blandly. Miss I. Single shrieked 
at him, and cried aloud: 

“My views to a dot.” 

“If I be not impertinent, I beg to say that if I had given 
the matter as much profound and zealous study as the 
Professor, I would no doubt entertain the same views.” 
And Clever Hesperus was under the impression he smiled, 
though nobody thought he did. 

Just here ex-Senator Merill Wadsworth swept along 
in his auto-car, and Mina and Miss I. Single bounded 
in and whirled away. The men sauntered down to the 
beach, and felt dull, with something taken out of the joy 
of the day. 


CHAPTER IX 


M ITH Gulliver, the friend and familiar 
of Nero Pensive, proceeded straight to 
New York to give what information he 
had obtained feloniously about Clarissa 
Harlow and Mina Wadsworth. It was 
wages to him, not service or honor. 

Nero was chafing because the two girls were together, 
and his infamous mood was dominating him. If he could 
but locate Dean McBarron, he would feel less intensely 
the acuteness of the situation. The Mr. Hyde of his nature 
was demonstrative, vulgar, profane, coarse ; and uppermost 
now, the Dr. Jekyll within being in mean and utter sub- 
jection. 

The man was a veritable Mephistopheles, a Cronos, 
suppressing the divine Adam, the Ish of the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures, in him. In every one, to be sure, there is a Faust 
and a Christ, a Nero and a Hezekiah, a sinner and a saint, 
a devil and an angel, a Socrates and a Casper Hauser. 

Nero Pensive had permitted the evil to dominate his 
life, and upon occasion he became a raving madman. Com- 
mon sense was a charlatan, a monkey; a device of evil, 
when passion tore him to tatters. 

So he received Mith Gulliver, on the occasion of his re- 
call from Atlantic City, with execrations and furious ful- 
minations, a foolish storm of reproach. No half sane man, 
even, likes to be the recipient of such abusive tongue es- 
95 


96 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


capades. They have no place in the better and higher 
order of things. 

Mith arose and stood at the door. For one thing, al- 
low it to be said, whatever Mith lacked by nature, he did 
not lack the excellent gift of physical courage. 

“Here! Here! Here! Cut this all out,” he roared 
above Nero’s bellowings, his brows fairly joining in knit 
line over his eyes, a hand against the door-facing, and 
bracing himself. 

“Blank, blank your measley mustard soul! Why are 
you alive! Why didn’t you separate them!” He de- 
manded, unreasonably asking the impossible. 

“I never make mistakes, I want to tell you,” said Mith 
placatingly, “and if you will believe me or not I strove 
and worked and did everything with all my might and 
strength to bring the separation about, and would have 
done it if you had not called me back here. Here I am, 
and I could not do it, and so it is.” 

“Your a blank dirty liar!” 

“You’re another.” 

“I’ll not take that, you he devil.” 

“O, yes you will.” 

Nero rushed toward Mith with angry face and clenched 
fists, furiously bent on striking. But something in Mith’s 
eye put wisdom in Nero’s petty head, and he argued him- 
self into a belief that it was best for him to keep his head 
out of the tiger’s mouth. He paused, turned back, waved 
his hand, turned to Mith, and said: 

“O, Mith, what a fool I am. I am beside myself, be- 
cause I can’t have my way at every turn in life.” 

“I know. I’m next to you. When it comes to me, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


97 


Nero, you’ve never got your nerve with you to do violence 
to yourself by using me as the instrument of self-inflic- 
tion.” 

“Glad you see and excuse my folly.” 

“I’m too good a friend to you to hurt you — in any 
way. I say in any way. I know your spells don’t last 
longer than a snowflake in sheol, or a lighted match and 
powder, or a woman’s love for her husband.” 

“Your’re smarter than I am, Mith; a blank sight. Do 
the girls associate much together?” 

“Yes, considerable, more or less.” 

“Let it go that way. Let them alone.” 

“As you say.” 

“But I now want to know where Dean McBarron, 
your George Washington is. Tell me that, and I will 
forgive you this present row between us.” 

“I — I — I’m very correct, you know, and would give 
you no false information, you know, but really at this mo- 
ment I don’t know where he’s hiding, hiding success- 
fully. But I will soon know, I say. You know Clarissa 
Harlow was lost but a moment. My keen scent found her 
as soon as I set out after her, you know. They can’t 
get away from me, I say.” 

“I’m not stuck with the idea of raking up the 
scraps of humanity from the hedges and byways, from 
the poorhouses and jails to associate with and dwell with 
on equal terms; but when they come into your life, nolens 
volens, what will a body do.” It was easy to see the drift 
of his observation. 

“Like people guilty of treason, make the most of it,” 
returned Mith, not seeing the application of his utterance. 


98 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Ah, you ? re exceeding smart, Mith, to make such keen, 
happy remarks — exceeding smart; and I’m a fool, it goes 
without demonstration. You are an expert in advising 
the correct thing, you see, and one is bound to respect 
it, or go counter to it, one or the other.” It was the spirit 
still of the grinning, unconquered Mr. Hyde deceived into 
obedience. 

“I’m no fool!” 

“O, well, now don’t abuse yourself by getting angry 
about a matter, in which you can’t justify yourself — no 
reason for your anger. Come, sit down — sit down. You 
really deserve the best that cheers the soul and stirs up 
dormant, or flunking, happiness.” 

“I’ll go you.” 

“I’m your friend, Mith. Pray pay no attention to my 
tantrums; they’re the rage of a moment, and gone. You 
know this. I need you. You have a face strong, serious, 
common, with an every-day look, nothing attractive be- 
yond ordinary, nothing sweet above the level, but a com- 
mon-sense, plain, true face; vigorous, not manly, not 
coarse, not grave, not farcical, not fitful, serious, attractive 
for its shining lustre or model shape, but for what one 
don’t see there but knows is behind it — a great spy. I 
need you, Mith. You are my mascot. Find me Dean 
McBarron, and your reputation and fortune will be made. 
Hear me?” 

“Sure.” 

Nero Pensive, as every one knew, was a man perfectly 
willing to quarrel with his best friend, if the impulse com- 
manded and controlled him, and never reckon with con- 
sequences till they came. Living an imperfect, unsound, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


99 


incomplete life, his memory had a very large and com- 
plete stock of regrets. Never contented, all things ex- 
hausted at thirty, the end had really come before nature 
had ordered it. Having lived up all the divine gifts, he 
was qualified for nothing becoming a full man. 

“Find him, Mith,” he said, after they had hobnobbed 
together and reiterated in small detail all the news Mith 
bore from Atlantic City. 

“A wink’s as good as a nod to a blind horse.” 

Nero Pensive sat long in doubtful meditation, bitter 
indecision, and chafed and ranted at the fates, — that his 
exchequer was low, and that conditions intervened to 
checkmate his “making a raise” before it should be too 
late. 

Foul-minded man! 


CHAPTER X 


T HE men were discussing the new arrivals 
from New York, and wondering why they 
should come to Atlantic City. Then they 
went to the golf links, and were thor- 
oughly enlivened, even resurrected from 
the death and the grave of inaction. The play made life 
for the day seem worth while. They had thoroughly 
fumigated their blood, for “the blood is the life,” with 
oxygen, and the subtile ozone broadened their minds and 
tempers throughout the day. 

Miss Olive Pendell had come, and Mina at once met 
her. The meeting was not perfunctory, was not as the 
limited pen of a ready press reporter would say “a 
joyous one,” but it was one that exhumed the girlish past 
buried at Vassar some time ago, and now they reread the 
old records in the memory, in which were many laugh- 
able college escapades. Some things they recalled were 
screamingly farcical, and their pleasure together was real. 

Olive told her dear friend Mina, with no easy heart, 
with no tearless eye, her heart story. It was crushing, 
a blacking of the whole firmament, to discover that Law- 
rence Dunston had deceived her as to his drink habits. 
It taxed her resolution to the extreme limit to have to 
“pass him up” and tear him altogether out of her life. 
She was bruised, sore, wounded, and there could be no 
Good Samaritan to step in and comfort and care for 
IOO 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


IOI 


her. She must tread the winepress alone, “a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief.” But she could not 
spoil her own life, and his too, by marrying him. He did 
not respect his promise, nor his word, nor love her fondly 
and truly enough to look not on the wine when it is 
red. 

She and Mina were in the cottage leased for the sea- 
son by the Pendells, sitting in the bow-window, and the 
breeze from the sea fluttered the curtains and the palms. 
The effect of it all was subtile joy, a permeating in- 
fluence that had an uplift in it, a token of what heaven 
perhaps will be. Without announcement, as if emerging 
from the air, springing out from nothing as it were, quite 
to their surprise Miss I. Single cried in front of the win- 
dow: 

“O, girls, come out. Or shall I come in? It is life- 
giving to be in the sun. 1 believe in sun, much sun, too 
much sun.” 

“Come-in — come-in,” Miss Olive Pendell bade, run- 
ning to the door to welcome her. They had met, when 
Olive first arrived. It seemed to be but a chance, pass- 
ing acquaintance, such as takes place at all public re- 
sorts. 

Neither Mina nor Olive had a final opinion of the 
girl, who seemed to be unchaperoned, except by a man, 
who in no way seemed her equal. She might be truly 
divine, and she might be a Camille or a Nana. Not- 
withstanding, she deported herself with the very best 
self-concern and circumspection. 

Miss I. Single fairly flew in, on invitation, and her 


102 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


vivacity seemed proper and irrepressible. They all came 
out and occupied the vine-shady veranda. 

“I was simply drifting to the tennis court,” said Miss 
I. Single, presenting a smile that not only showed per- 
fect teeth but an unruffled temper, “when I stumbled 
on you here,” nodding toward them. 

There was something supremely charming and mar- 
velously beautiful and attractive about the gay, giddy 
girl that won all people to her. But she seemed to lack 
the stability of character that makes noble wives, super- 
fine mothers, and model home-keepers. She, in a word, 
was defective in that positive goodness that characterizes 
great domestic femininity. She was liable to say things 
that might border on the femininely heretical. 

“Going to the tennis court,” exclaimed the two girls 
in a breath. 

“Did I say tennis court? Perhaps I was going after 
the men, if I should honestly confess, before my God, 
the motive in my soul that God himself had a hand in 
creating.” 

This was shocking. But she added in an unforced spirit 
of seriousness: 

“I was simple minded once. Had not lived long and 
had not learned the art of evading impertinent questions 
with impertinent lies. This is a heartless confession, I 
know, and is not an accusation against you two supremely 
morally normal girls. No, no, not an accusation.” 

And here the matter was dropped. 

“You are so superbly gowned,” said Olive. 

“I dress for men only. All do it.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


103 


“I have no desire to outdress others,” said Mina, disre- 
garding Miss I. Single’s observation. 

“I do,” said Miss I. Single without the tone of con- 
troversy. “The frou-frou of a Paris gown is angelic 
music to my soul. In the height of the season not to be 
in the mode, or in the swim, is simply to be in an Adam- 
less heaven.” 

“It takes money to dress,” said Olive oracularly. 

“Mrs. Burke-Roche-Batonyi complained bitterly that 
eighty thousand a year was too little for the proper garb- 
ing of her aristocratic form,” said Mina. “She could not 
dress on so pinched an allowance.” 

“Miss Giulia Morosini spent a hundred thousand dol- 
lars a year on her clothes, and that would buy only a 
hundred dresses at a thousand dollars apiece,” said Miss 
I. Single. 

“Some nighties are most bewitching lingerie,” said 
Olive, “and cost two thousand dollars and more. They 
are hand-woven linen batiste, of indescribable sheerness 
and flawless. These robes de nuit are trimmed in Brus- 
sels lace and are hand embroidered with vine of roses and 
leaves, and herein lies their splendor.” 

“The trousseau of the Archduchess Maria Henriette 
consisted of wedding, reception, honeymoon, automobile, 
driving, riding, dinner and restaurant, ball, and opera 
costumes, French models, and the women fairly broke 
their necks to see it when it was put on exhibit,” said 
Mina. 

“The picturesque directoire idea, with a double row of 
buttons, going with a high collar, is on the road to popu- 
larity,” said Miss I. Single. It’s daring — that’s it. An 


104 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


embroidered lining in distracting fanciful figures un- 
derneath the full-length slit. This costume of old rose 
silk, or white satin, striped perpendicularly with black, 
would be fetching. In fact the sheath gown is de requeur 
and is chic.” 

“I like an old-world blue Roman satin, — a match for 
my eyes,” said Olive. “I would want little trimming, 
save a band of embroidery jeweled with sapphires, and 
fastened at the side with a buckle inlaid with blue stones, 
— something not purely decorative yet sweet and cling- 
ing.” 

“Very thin silk stockings, extraordinarily rich, laced, 
embroidered, so that when a wind flutters the soft un- 
lined skirts which are cunningly weighted at the hems, 
the richness of the hosiery will be seen as well as the 
pretty, neat, little shoe,” said Miss I. Single. “A corsage 
or white waist with openwork or peekaboo effect, and a 
merry-widow hat so large that no man at a theatre can 
see for the cordon or cheval-de-frise of hats in front of 
him. Wonderful woman; poor little man!” 

“And what is it all for?” asked Mina. 

“Marriage, of course,” said Miss I. Single, staring 
lugubriously at Mina. She was thinking of her and 
Nero Pensive. “Fine dresses, you see, render the Fort 
Dodge, Iowa, ‘must marry ordinance’ entirely need- 
less. Girls will marry, and what is the use 
to disguise any of their methods for entrapping a man.” 

“O, you horrid thing of such unrobed ideas, undis- 
guised by mild terms or sugar-coat covering,” cried Mina 
in mixed metaphor adding a laugh that was not all real 
levity, — possessing a shadow of reproof in it. “How 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


105 


lightly, my dear girl, you view the matrimonial venture.” 
And she opened her fan in a way that seconded her 
sentiment. 

“I think most domestic troubles originate in want of 
thought,” said Olive, whose mind and heart were sore 
yet from her recent bitter experience. 

“Few women have the tact to handle a husband as 
they should,” looking soberly out upon the beach. 

“Shan’t I tell you girls that you know nothing about 
husbands, or once in the noose what sort of tact will 
win out,” said Miss I. Single in a lilting tone that 
seemed to have a yawn in it The two girls looked in- 
stantly across the line of view of the other, and then as 
if concealing an obtruding thought looked away. Mina’s 
brown eyes took on a flash of keener intensity that was 
not suspicion but wonder, was not accusation but charity, 
was not judgement but kindliness. “No, girls, I’m con- 
fessing nothing,” complacently added Miss I. Single, but 
she did not lift her serious eyes from the obtruding toe- 
point of her enameled Sorosis. The added remark dis- 
pelled the opportunity for suspicion. “I simply state what 
I have observed, and what you will doubtless experience 
some day.” 

“Of course,” said Mina, “unnatural marriage combi- 
nations can’t be right. Nothing can make them right. 
And they can never be happy — such unions.” 

“And mental combinations may be unfortunate, a bad 
mixture of disagreeing emotions, and the results are but 
natural, to be sure,” supplemented Olive. 

“The tendency of the day is to frivolity, and away 
from seriousness, in most things, and particularly so in 


io6 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


love affairs,” said Mina reflectively, at the same time half 
confessing by sober glance that she had not been wholly 
guiltless herself. In a restless moment she walked up 
and down the veranda, and then sat down again upon 
the veranda chair. Miss I. Single looked up, self-accused. 
Olive looked her approval of the sage remark, and then 
added as corroborative: 

“Love affairs now-a-days seem not to be serious, as you 
say, Mina, and mismated affection soon develops into a 
poisoned affection, in more senses than that of mere in- 
definite sentiment.” 

“Who’s to blame for all this?” asked Miss I. Single, 
as if she had more experience than she cared to confide 
then to a cold and cruel world. Mina observed with 
cunning eye the self-conviction that suffused for one 
brief instant like a flash the face of Miss I. Single. It 
resembled a flash of painful memory. 

“For one thing, lax divorce laws,” said Olive. 

“For another, parentage,” said Mina. 

“For another the home, training, and mode of life,” 
said Miss I. Single, drawing upon her own store of ex- 
perience for the conclusion. 

“Love derelicts,” added Olive. 

“A happy life seems to be altogether in the favor of 
the gingham-gowned girl,” said Mina, arching her brows 
without felonious intent and making that unqualified 
classification of facts that is the license of conversation. 

“But let me tell you, girls, — every girl is like a fine 
peach in the market that sells entirely on its good looks, 
since it can’t be sampled without ruin, and sells not on 
its real quality. And you know the fine, large-looking 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


107 


peaches are not very sweet. But it is a generally accepted 
proposition that the exterior of anything argues the qual- 
ity of the nature of the interior. Most people have no 
other opportunity of judging of the interior but by the 
exterior. All girls know this fact, and hence they fix up, 
look sweet, and put the best foot foremost.” Miss I. 
Single did not spare herself in this trenchant criticism. 
She concluded: “But you well know, girls, that the 
way the skin and the flesh shape up over the bony anatomy 
is not the way the soul, the real thing, is fashioned.” 

“Beauty is only skin deep, in other words,” said Olive, 
having a lively impression of the hoary age of the adage. 

“Matrimony becomes discouraging, to say the very 
least, to the uninitiated,” said Mina, “when they behold so 
many wives who have become good remonstrators and 
have made marriage a failure.” 

“Who’d have thought it! Even Queen Alexandra has 
dwindled into a family brawler; and others beside her 
make a purgatory of home,” said Miss I. Single seriously. 

“I should think, in view of this awful fact, that no 
man would wish to marry. He takes a very great risk,” 
said Olive candidly. 

“O, girls, let’s cut out this foolish, insane talk,” laugh- 
ed Miss I. Single. “None of us will know anything sure 
about it, — all speculation now, — till we have had the 
Gordian knot tied. Speculation decides nothing.” 

“You seem to think,” interposed Mina, “that the old 
adage is true, that when a man marries his troubles begin. 
Mrs. Newlywed doesn’t think so, whatever the next-door 
neighbor may say.” 

“Yes, yes, girls,” broke in Miss I. Single, “it is a 


io8 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


national evil, — I speak soberly when I say national evil, 
— that there are so many unkissed wives and unkissed 
husbands. Daughters, girls, sisters, sweethearts man- 
age to be kissed too much too soon. Going to divorce 
courts is like asking for another chance to get away from 
the evil of marriage, much as the boy asked for another 
chance after he had applied a lighted match to the pow- 
derhorn. A second opportunity will bring about much 
the same result as did the first. Adam and Eve, you 
know, had trouble from the start. Trouble is a natural 
element of the human creature, — born with it; kismet.” 

“And yet marrying is the most natural thing in the 
world— and the greatest,” said Mina. Miss I. Single 
thought of Nero Pensive again. 

“An unmarried girl is a mismated creature,” said 
Miss I. Single. 

“Of two evils choose the less,” said Olive. 

There was a hiatus in the talk. Some auto swirled 
by, and disappeared in a swirl of dust down the avenue, 
and the girls paused in the desired undesirable talk. The 
dust lingered and slowly diffused itself in the air. 

Miss I. Single knew one man in the horseless rig. 
It was Mith Gulliver. So soon! His journey to Phil- 
adelphia had not been delayed. Miss I. Single wondered. 
This unexpected, speedy return probably meant import- 
ant news. 

She soon bade the girls good-bye, and passed away on 
lilting toe, casting back a golden smile, and a cheery, 
careless twitter in her voice. 

“There’s something dreamily mysterious in that giddy- 
brained girl’s life, over which she seems to cast a veil 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


109 


by a seeming absolute freedom from care,” said Mina, 
as she and Olive went into the flower-flecked many-hued 
lawn. 

“Is her gayety put on?” asked Olive in considerable 
surprise. 

“She compels me to love her, and yet I have uncer- 
tain feelings in her presence. I have but just met her 
here — in the last day or two.” 

“She has singular views,” said Olive. 


CHAPTER XI 


66 


I 


the lawn. 


’VE come quickly to tell you that Nero Pen- 
sive has disappeared, and that I don’t know 
where. He’s not in Philadelphia,” said 
Mith Gulliver, standing close to Clarissa 
Harlow under the shade of a large tree on 
and striving to have the important air of a 


director general of some serveillance department, — some- 


thing grander than that of a spy, or a detective, or the 
common work of a Sherlock Holmes put on the scent of 
a Raffles or an Orchard. 

“Disappeared!” in agitated surprise. “Mysteriously 
disappeared! Have you an idea where?” speaking rapid- 
ly. 


“Where! — I never fail you, I never miss fire, I’m al- 
ways your slave, Miss Harlow, and I beg, I say beg, to 
assure you that if he is not dead and in the grave I’ll find 
him for you, never mind. Sure! Don’t worry.” 

She was silent a moment. A desperate occasion de- 
mands strenuous measures. She came, in the first in- 
stance, to Atlantic City, expecting to fall upon Nero 
Pensive; for Mith had told her this titled “Lord” would 
be there to meet Miss Wadsworth. He had not ma- 
terialized himself there. Perhaps he had found another 
pretty face somewhere, which he was flattering and mis- 
leading. But he must be dug up at all hazards. It was 
no secret to her that he was evading her. 

However, her coming to Atlantic City had brought 
her gain in the game, — a point she had not anticipated, 
no 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


hi 


It put her decidedly in the lead in the contest. She an- 
swered Mith: 

“Find him for me at once.” 

“I say, indeed I will, — sooner than you or I think. 
I’ll unearth him somewhere, if I have to dig over every 
foot of earth to find his grave, — if he is in it; and he 
should be.” He whispered, looking about as if his great- 
est dread on earth was ears, — human ears. But it was 
all for effect. 

“If you don’t find him, somebody will, or I will,” 
she said very positively, her round pearl eyes fairly 
dancing in flashing animation. 

“Never you weep, Miss Harlow, — I beg pardon, Miss 
I. Single, — I’ll report him to you in a few days. I’ve 
given the police of several cities the tip (the cold-blooded 
liar!) and I know we will find him soon. Meanwhile, 
my headquarters are here in Atlantic City, where I can 
take orders from you direct and report the latest things 
found out, you see.” He furtively glanced at the un- 
suspecting, trustful young girl. 

“If you don’t find him,” approaching near and tap- 
ping his lapel with her finger nails, “I say, if you don’t 
find him,” — a pause, — “you’d better.” She frowned. 

“I’m no boaster, as you very well know, and I am 
a man of very few words, as I like to be, but I’m a man 
of quick action, as I have proved to you in more cases 
than one; but I’m here to tell you I’ll find him in no time 
at all, — find him, at all.” 

“That is all I ask.” 

As if suddenly taken with a new idea, — though he 
had well planned just how he would do it, he broke out 
in a way meant to leave her to infer that something, — 


1 12 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


perhaps much, — might hinge on this particular matter: 

“Where is Dean McBarron, — I wonder?” Her sur- 
reptitious glance had a design in it. She half surmised 
he was pumping her. If so, what could it mean? 

“Ah, you have asked me — ” 

“I heard Nero Pensive say, last time I was with him, 
that he thought McBarron is in England, — I say in Eng- 
land.” 

“Yes; I don’t—” 

“No, I don’t either.” 

“He—” 

“Nero said he suddenly picked up and went back to 
England.” The liar! 

“I — ” Miss I. Single knew him to be in a Chicago 
hospital. And she was going to keep him there, and let 
Mith do some little rummaging among the human ag- 
glomerations to find him. 

It was at this moment that that dread man, Clever 
Hesperus, appeared in all his fullness and passivity. He 
was walking toward them, a hand behind him, as if he 
had ordered it to bring up the rear, his tall, slender 
frame assuming a gait like the peripatetics, a step so mea- 
sured and prim as to suggest a soul within chained and 
galled and crushed by method, the highest form of rare- 
fied torture. He bowed and lifted his panama to Miss 
I. Single, and then greeted Mith Gulliver, alias Mr. 
Mikado. He begged pardon for intruding. 

“But what fallible man is immune against the deadly 
contagion of beauty,” he smiled at the young girl, his 
smile having the defect of no warmth, — a thin, dyspeptic, 
exact, cross seam, or horizontal crease in his face. A 
swift mental comment she made to the effect that Mr. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


H3 

Exact was a melodrama written in tragedy and with 
strong lights and fierce music. She smiled. The smile 
of a woman is not always what it appears to be on the 
surface. There was an uninterpretable tinge of shadow 
as a background of the wily smile. 

“Do you say that, expecting me to forget my troubles 
and listen to yours? But what do I say, — you have no 
troubles.” 

She pointed to a rustic seat nearby, under the shelter- 
ing arms of a stately tree, whence Mith was already di- 
recting his steps. Without a word she followed him, 
and Clever followed her. They sat upon the rustic 
bench. Clever looked up among the leaves, fluttering 
with undisguised joy in the gentle wind. For the first 
time she caught a feint of love in his dome of thought, 
not in his heart, and she felt that his destiny was in her 
power. He had no heart, though he was impressed to 
the contrary. She imagined he had a look of love guilt- 
iness; as if he had been thinking unauthorized thoughts 
and dreaming impossible dreams about her. She did not 
object. Every captured man was a subtile flattery. It 
all went in life, and helped to relieve the intolerable 
monotony. 

“My troubles are few and far between like angels’ 
visits, and this is due, I may say without the slightest 
exaggeration, to an attitude of mind,” he said gravely, 
as did Anthony in his funeral oration over the dead body 
of Caesar, the fresh victim of Brutus’ dagger. 

“You are a great artist in the skillful use of words,” 
she observed, while an aside to herself declared this was 
another watering-place episode. She would develop the 
lead and see what was in it. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


114 

“You, — mind you, Fm not in an accusative, or nomina- 
tive, or vocative state of mind and heart, — you, I say, 
indulge the poetic faculty of imagination, it seems to 
me, without let or hinderance,” he remarked a little ten- 
tatively. 

“I have a graveyard in my rear yard, with not a grave- 
stone in it, where I have buried some, or most, of my 
best admired and dearest pet lies, and where I hope they 
will lie unidentified till doomsday, or the day after.” 

“My friend, Professor Nelson, said he had a garden 
ful of thriving, well-cultivated lies and they were in 
profusive colors and of perfect form. Perhaps he would 
rent you a nosegay of them.” This was the highest 
flight of imagination he had ever indulged. Love is ever 
a stimulus of the fancy. 

“No. They are useless at a summer watering-resort; 
and moreover I should dislike to wear them in the pres- 
ence of my friends, and especially before you.” She 
smiled bewitchingly. 

“I never had a genuine, careful, near, dear friend”, said 
he. The reason was not with the friends but with him, 
to be sure. 

Mith had been mum up to this moment, but he now 
broke in: 

“I never had but one, and she died.” 

“Your love — fatal?” she asked, and Mr. Exact Clever 
Hesperus looked at him, a similar inquiry in his eyes. 
Then he added: 

“Girls should take warning and avoid the poison of 
your love.” 

“No man is to be trusted,” said Mith, “who don’t make 
a fool of himself once in a while over a lovely woman.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


ii5 

“In other words I might utter your idea, viewed from 
a different angle, and say, — No life but what is inter- 
esting and romatic to the one living it,” said Clever Hes- 
perus. 

“I have no doubt that is entirely true,” said Mith 
quite unconscious of his solemnity and undisguised hon- 
esty of idea, and of his curtness which was as pronounced 
as that of a country doctor. 

“It is not to be doubted,” said Clever Hesperus in 
eloquent decisiveness. 

“Truth is ever true — right or wrong,” said Mith. His 
power of logic did not strike attitudes, or reach altitudes, 
or puzzle the keenest brains by its obscurities. 

“I should think Mr. Clever Hesperus has lost a 
sweetheart somewhere along the rugged pathway of life, 
and that he is no longer without an ever-present dis- 
turbing memory,” remarked Miss I. Single, bringing 
herself under the rigid laws of love diplomacy. 

“No-o-o. That is to say, if I may say it, that she 
did not die, nor did I ever confess to her that I loved 
her; but she married another man.” 

“That was romantic. I trust you have never been 
so cold-blooded as Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen was. He 
spent a summer at a watering-place, and flirted with a 
young lady, and at the end of the flirtation he coolly 
lifted his hat, said good-bye, and added that she had 
been worth five hundred dollars to him,” said Miss I. 
Single. 

“How was that?” Mr. Exact asked naively. 

“He embroidered the flirtation in a story that he sold 
to a magazine for five hundred dollars. 

“Gad! The idea is a suggestion. A friend of mine 


8 


1 1 6 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


was once writing a story, and to gain information first- 
handed for his greatest love scene he made love to a 
beautiful girl.” 

“With what result?” she asked. 

“They married in six months.” 

“Good,” cried she. Her smile was winning. Mith 
said it was “fetching.” Among men his depiction of her 
smile was not always as elegant even as this. Clever 
Hesperus built great skyscraping “air domes” out of it, 
and assumed that he was gaining in her favor. Other- 
wise she was under no obligation to give him the best 
out of her repertoire of bewitching smiles. Evidently 
she had an assortment of them. It flatters a common 
man to be admired by a lovely woman. The smile stirred 
the almost impossible or dried-up emotions of the man, 
defective in that greatest and most perfect of all God’s 
gifts, emotion. 

It is impossible to fathom her reasons for tolling on 
this poor moth. She had a reason at the moment she 
thought. To-morrow she might repudiate it. But it 
answered her purpose to-day. 

As Mith Gulliver, the friend to no one, arose to leave, 
he presented the flimsy excuse of pressing business. The 
real reason was that he did not want to listen to the 
subtle love-making to her by another man. Still it should 
be nothing to him, for he was nothing to her. 

Her flirtation with Clever Hesperus for the nonce was 
closed. She apologized for leaving, stating she had a 
“previous engagement.” He believed her. And he helped 
her frame the apology to him. He would not have her 
violate a “date on his account for anything.” 


CHAPTER XII 


P ROFESSOR Nelson, I am yet in politics, 
in a way, as you well know. A man 
once in politics very deep seldom is 
able to escape from the foul marsh and 
the miasma and ignes-fatui, and it is 
quite possible that you may be chosen with others to go 
to Europe on a business of special investigation for the 
government.” 

“Would it affect my present position in the university, 
Mr. Wadsworth?” 

“Not in the least. Of course I will see to that,” said 
ex-Senator Merrill Wadsworth confidently. They were 
standing in the spacious office of the best hotel in At- 
lantic City, mingling the smoke of their Favorosas in 
blue waves just above them, and idling away an hour in 
the manner of the modern approved idea of “rest.” 

The irrepressible, good-humored, splendid fellow, Peter 
Wilkins, sauntered into the corridor, his hat smartly set 
upon one side, his cigar sticking up like Uncle Joe Can- 
non’s, and a swell commedian air in his affectedly swag- 
gerish gait. Approaching ex-Senator Wadsworth and 
Prof. Nelson, he first spoke. 

“May I mingle smoke with you gentlemen?” he said 
in the hard method of one serious unto death, or one so 
desiccated the spice of his soul had evaporated or levanted 
to the beyond ahead of him, or his enthusiasm was dead 
1 17 


1 1 8 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


or dropped off along the way with much other delicious 
waste stuff or extinct exuvia. 

“Throw that stub away and take a fresh one,” said 
Prof. Nelson handing him his cigar case. Peter Wil- 
kins removed his half consumed cigar, looked affection- 
ately at it a moment as if loth to part with it, and then 
dropped it into the broad countenance of the nearest 
cuspidor. He chose another from the cigar case, like a 
timid boy trying to spell his first word orally before a 
crusty father, lighted it at the red end of the Professor’s, 
and with a profund bow said: 

“Thanks.” 

His elaborateness was the humor of it. 

“What news?’ ’asked the ex-Senator. 

“I’ve a mind to withdraw from earth to eternity,” 
said Peter with affected gloom. 

“Why?” queried the Professor. 

“Because I can’t invent as deep and unfathomable 
quibbles, as clever and perfect as those forged in Erebus 
(is that right, Professor?) as another fellow I know.” 

“Who is that?” asked the ex-Senator. 

“Clever Hesperus, my law partner, sometimes nick- 
named very appropriately Mr. Exact.” 

“Yes?” queried the Professor. 

“He never made a quibble or a quaver in his long, 
lonely, thirty-one years of his arctic-zone existence,” said 
Peter Wilkins. They had now found seats and had 
their feet duly propped against the foot rail. 

“He is a perfectly harmless fellow, too correct to be 
human, to be sure, but withal a well-meaning fellow,” 
said the Professor. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


119 

“He confidently believes himself one thing, when 
others see him differently. His ideas are like speaking 
German to you in French, — a mixture of frost and hard 
sense drawn out thin as gold foil. Remember I’m a 
privileged character in all I say, and stand ready to be 
knocked down at any time.” Peter Wilkins closed an 
eye, as if to exclude half his ideas as both clumsy and 
worthless. 

“I take it,” said the Professor, “that he says a thing 
because it is truth and ought to be said ; and not simply 
because his egotism wants to say it, right or wrong.” 

“I think he does not care who I am or what I am,” 
said Peter Wilkins. “Now, that’s what I think he thinks 
of me; but in real fact what does he think? I take a man 
at what he is, not by the position he holds. ‘Some mute 
inglorious Miltons’ occupy insignificant places, while 
incompetents may be preferred to exalted positions over 
better men.” 

“Of course,” observed the ex-Senator, emptying a 
mouthful of smoke into the still air, “of course it is 
very impolite to be insultingly frank, as all men will and 
must say, and it is equally uncivil and crude to make 
responses equally impolite. I have too little knowledge 
of the real Clever Hesperus to speak correctly of him.” 

“There are people, since we have come to the abstract 
discussion of character,” said the Professor, “who dis- 
pute everything they never heard of before. Their idea 
is, ‘I didn’t hear it, or see it, and so it isn’t true.’ As 
if what they hadn’t heard or thought of couldn’t have 
an existence, — must have origin in their minds, or there- 
fore it is not true. This is there shortsighted logic. Their 


120 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


innate assumption is that they are infinite, and hence 
there can be no experience or knowledge beyond what 
originates with them.” 

“Egotism is the happiest state of all, after all,” said 
the ex-Senator in philosophical declamation. “It is per- 
haps as little less selfish as any other state of mind. No 
state of soul but what is self-seeking and selfish, in that 
it can be no other than itself. But all states of soul are 
not cunningly self-seeking, regarless of what may befall 
the other fellow.” 

“Don’t you like the man,” said Peter Wilkins, “who 
looks studiedly indifferent, as if he thought you thought 
he was great, — as if he thought he saw he was impress- 
ing you with a sense flattering to him, framing good opin- 
ions of himself in your mind and soul center, creating in 
you a startling wonder about his great self, a ‘marvelous 
proper man?’ ” 

“The world is afflicted with a strange malady of over- 
indulged selfishness, and the symptoms are greed, creed, 
commercialism, graft, class consciousness, trade agree- 
ments, labor federations, and the like.” said ex-Senator 
Wadsworth solemnly, seriously. 

“And H agues to correct and assimilate the best thought 
out of all the earth,” put in Professor Nelson quickly. 

“And unify all men, who are in fact one universal 
brotherhood, under one and the same God,” said Peter 
Wilkins casting off his commedian mask for a moment 
and speaking rapidly as a magazine gun. 

At this juncture a stranger walked into the corridor 
and stalked straight up to the clerk’s desk with- 
out looking to the right or the left. He had 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


121 


gray hair and gray mustache, bearing the air of a man 
of experience and acquaintance with the world. His 
height was about six feet. The keen, small, steady, pene- 
trating, treacherous eye, of a dazzling full gray at times 
and an uncertain hue of purple at others, was a mark in 
the gray man’s general make-up that suggested caution 
to the keen analyst and denied his acceptance, on his 
first word to one, into the private family of one’s best 
friends. Then, too, he had a wide, long nose and low 
forehead, and rather protruding chin. But his dress was 
slightly in disorder, as if it had seen serious service. All 
this Prof P. Thomas Nelson observed quickly with his 
accustomed habit of careful analysis of persons. The Pro- 
fessor really knew more people than there were people 
who knew him. 

“See that guy?” asked Peter Wilkins in a voice toned 
down to their immediate circle. 

“Yes. He’s seen about all there is to see in an ordinary 
life of three score and ten, though I should judge not 
above thirty,” said the Professor observantly. 

“A social degenerate, eh?” suggested the ex-Senator. 

“Seen about the whole show, eh? And the rest of it 
is but repetition, eh? Not much in front for him in the 
future.” And Peter Wilkins laid a finger along side his 
elementary elephantine proboscis. 

“A face desolate, not an oasis in it, — a mean face, I 
should say, a little severely perhaps,” said the Professor 
as he gazed straight at the man he was so carefully dis- 
secting. 

“Suppose I should say his face has a mottled, scrambled- 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


egg appearance,” said Peter Wilkins, knocking the ash 
of his cigar into the spittoon. 

“Perhaps,” nodded the Professor. After a pause he 
added: “That fellow feels driven into a corner, and is 
resisting fate. That man’s first impulse now is to resist, 
fight everything as something inimical to him; flare up, 
oppose, deny, cry ‘I don’t know’ (even when he does 
know). His inner, deep-down, mudsill foundation rebels 
and fights like the tiger, and he will be considerate with 
no one or at nothing. He is resisting the self-conviction 
that he is a proper subject of condemning criticism. He 
has lived up the little good that was before him ychen he 
set out at first in life.” 

“He looks morally seedy, — that’s the idea,” said Peter 
Wilkins, in no hurry to enforce his idea upon his hearers. 

“Down in the mouth, out at the elbow, and over at 
the heel,” remarked the ex-Senator. He added reflec- 
tively: “Most people in this mundane sphere are per- 
fectly willing to take, few to give , — money, goods, lands, 
presents, good words, good feelings, help, friendship. Ac- 
cording to the law of opposites peace argues war. In 
these latter days of adulterated religion and amorphous 
Puritanism and false science, and recreant sociology, the 
socialistic idea is but a natural growth out of such mental 
soil; and therefore the socialistic idea, in its last analysis, 
is nothing but graft. That man is capable of being a real, 
rabid socialist.” 

“Now, I’ll venture, that booby there now at the clerk’s 
desk, looking around idly on us, is saying inwardly, per- 
haps while we are discussing him here outwardly, some- 
thing like this: ‘If I wrong any one, or rather unwit- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


123 


tingly offend a friend, I take every means to placate it, 
instead of every means to aggravate and fan and perpetu- 
ate it.’ This is my opinion of him, good for this minute 
only mind you, here and now publicly expressed.” 

“Don’t be too softly innocent about that chap, Peter 
Wilkins,” said ex-Senator Wadsworth, turning an eye 
edgeways on Peter. “That man — look and see for your- 
self — has a hard head, a very hard head.” 

“A perfectly useless factor in society,” assented Peter 
Wilkins. This started the Professor in a line of thought. 

“The economic view of vice,” said the Professor in- 
tensifying the appearance of thought in his brow, “the 
economic view of vice is that the law of heredity and en- 
vironment confirm the criminal. But to go on a little. 
Suppose some one snubs me, intending to hurt me; the 
injury, it is plain, is not to me if I disregard the snub, 
but it is to the snubber, who must have a certain state of 
mind and heart to do such a deed. If he snubs me that 
doesn’t give me his state of feeling, but it does intensify 
his own evil feeling. And more, such an act is the mark of a 
spirit born poor in noble qualities. Evil talk about me 
doesn’t reveal me , nor does our talk reveal this man ; it 
may be true and it may not be true; but our talk about 
him possesses a certain element of revelation about our- 
selves; and it is indisputable evidence about us. Our 
talk is our act, not his.” 

“I wonder who he is?” asked Peter Wilkins in a very 
matter of fact manner. 

The stranger walked away, seemingly having mentally 
photographed the place, and that was the last they saw 
of him. At the door he paused and looked at this trio 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


who had so cleverly discussed him, and the Professor was 
impressed that he knew or thought he knew one or more 
of them. But he turned his back upon them and was 
gone. 

The three human analists went into the dining-room 
and ordered a meal, such as well men love and can eat; 
and they ate it with gusto, while the band accompanied 
the clangor of knives and forks. A general sense of well- 
fed life prevailed. 

The Professor prospected the various tables, but his 
eyes nowhere fell on the silent stranger. No explanation 
offered itself to Prof P. Thomas Nelson, as to why that 
silent man should so impress him and occupy a place in 
his memory. The trio sat at the same table, but they 
said nothing that has any bearing on this story, and there- 
fore it would be against the rules of story writing to re- 
count it. But when they had devoured their aromatic 
and savory meal, they went out upon the street, and sep- 
arated in order to repair each to his own present object 
of existence. 


CHAPTER XIII 


I N these days love-making is not conducted as it was 
when Mrs. Roche, and Jane Austen, and Frances 
Burney, and Jane Porter wrote; nor Charlottee 
M. Young and Charlottee Bronte; nor even E. 
D. E. N. Southworth and Susan Rawson ; but the 
proposal now usually precedes the period of courtship, 
which is a very stupid and limited affair. The lovers 
at present are more emotional and passionate and frank, 
like animals, than delicate, romantic and sentimental, as 
they were a century or two ago. The homes now are 
as little after the old-style home as are the loves of the 
hour like the loves of old. Like that of the person, the 
outside of the home is fair enough, but the inside is a 
desperate confusion and want of taste in moral or ethical 
adornments. 

Two supreme powers or heads, demanding their rights 
instead of doing the duties in the home, are as sure to 
clash in time as twice two is four. The first law of 
harmony in the home commands the performance of 
duties, not the enforcement of rights. The law of con- 
cession is the most sublime law outside of the decalogue, 
and it should be written in letters of gold over every 
domestic front door in all the world, without ethnoligical 
classifications or theological distinctions. 

“The light of love shines over all; 

Of love, that says not mine and thine, 

But ours, but ours is thine and mine.” 

125 


126 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


The game of tennis ended, they sat on benches in the 
shade to rest and enjoy the intermingling of emotion as 
well as the pleasures of light conversation. 

Peter Wilkins ran, in splendid imitation of the comique, 
to Olive Pendell and said, quite unconscious of the ef- 
fect his words would have: 

“I’m an expert at avoiding work.” Olive shrieked in 
laughter, and when she had effervessed sufficiently to 
speak in moderation, she “paralyzed” him by saying: 

“I believe it.” 

Clever Hesperus tingled Miss I. Single’s ears with 
singular sentiment, turning to her with more flavor of 
gallantry than he had manifested thitherto: 

“Don’t you know, Miss I. Single, when one gets to 
being peculiar of finically particular, mentally he is going 
wrong? I have often thought of it.” 

She turned upon the wooden seat and almost stared at 
him. He of all men to describe his own greatest defect 
so well ! 

“And some people, not in America but across the bor- 
der in Canada or down in Mexico, know just enough to 
give advice liberally, don’t you know, and know no 
more,” she replied, fearing to take up his thought and 
discuss it. Besides, it is impolite to dwell in conversation 
too long upon any one point or theme. 

“Experts in advising; blunderers in practical affairs. 
But it really does seem that all the nice customs are going 
out of fashion, so says the Bachelor Girl and she means 
kissing and matrimony,” sighed Peter Wilkins with splen- 
did effect. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


127 


“You might include manners, modesty, home cooking, 
flattery, and flirting,” Olive interposed as a footnote. 

“Flattery and flirting,” objected Peter Wilkins, “isn’t 
nice nor suitable to modern customs of courting.” 

“You don’t know,” said Miss I. Single. “You’ve 
never tried them. You speak as a Mere Man. How can 
you know!” 

“Have you?” quickly, resting his eyes on her, and 
thinking her a lovely Bachelor Girl. She regarded him 
a spicy Mere Man. “Now we have the athletic girl, the 
tailor-made girl, the bachelor girl, the club girl, the do- 
as-I-please girl, the carry-my-own-latchkey and look-out- 
for-myself girl, and a whole gang of nondescript girls. 
They have usurped the earth, and are trying to knock 
out the Mere Man by gross stunts of temporary evil out- 
classing his. She wears no ruffles now, delicacy elimin- 
ated, her illusions mercilessly slaughtered,* she flirts, and 
the Mere Man isn’t in it.” 

“Well. And well. She has learned how to make 
sweet speeches and pretty compliments and tender soulful 
glances,” and Miss I. Single laughed excessively. 

“To be sure the gallant Mere Man has turned that 
field to her entirely. The modern man hasn’t time for 
such subtle delicacies; and when he tries to flirt he does 
it in a crude, bungling, business-like manner, just as he 
would order a bill of goods, or eat a dinner, or catch a 
train. Women have ceased to be delicious mysteries to 
men, and men no longer tell them fancy sentiments and 
all that. They are like a well-thummed book that has 
been read once, twice, thrice. And so there is no longer 
any use to flirt; the girl knows all about flirting herself 


128 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


before you begin — stale stuff. And then she will none 
of one who has only temporary amusement in view with 
her, and she cools like an autumn breeze when she finds 
out his motive is but a side affair. She wants none of 
the frills of love, and even love is no pastime. So men 
and mere women and bachelor girls live more apart than 
— .” Peter Wilkins laughed. 

“Yes,” said Olive Pendell, coming to the rescue, “now 
the fellows are mere means to ends, theatre tickets, flow- 
ers, dances, suppers at cafes, ice-cream and soft drinks, 
fine candies, and a thousand and one ways of making the 
poor fellows stand and deliver.” 

“I wish the girls had to propose,” said Peter. 

“Just so. Then they would not be on parade where 
the mere man can examine, cull, select, and ask,” said 
Miss I. Single. “And annexed, I should add. By this 
scheme of courtship some of us go back on the shelf and 
grow shopworn. At last, mayhap, we are taken by any 
old thing that comes along, all the prospect gone out of 
life. It’s better for the man to have the woman really 
want him and love him, than to take him as her bill payer. 
Then, too, so many proposals are grand farces, full of 
tempest but empty of dreams, bungled and slopped over, 
squirmed and sighed through, and all the rest of it. And 
maybe he writes the proposal or telephones it, and she — 
she — well, she usually says yes.” 

“There aren’t, then, any real, genuine, Simon Pure, 
all-gone proposals any more,” said Peter. “He men- 
tions to her casually that he needs somebody to darn his 
sox, sew on his buttons, make his coffee at the flats, scold 
him for smoking around the house, object to his pipe ly- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


129 


ing around homeless, kick the dog out when it enters, 
and such pleasant exercises as these, and that is all there 
is of it; no proper background with full moon and slow 
music. And they go off and tell the preacher about it 
and he marries them.” , 

“I think as to myself,” began Clever Hesperus in such 
mathematically exact tones that its effect on the mingled 
enthusiasm was like pouring a chemical fire extinguisher 
upon fire, “that it would not be the happiest thing to do 
to give the men the privilege of refusing.” 

“They’d take the first chance that came, eh?” suggested 
Peter. The humor was lost. 

Mina and the Professor had occupied another seat 
slightly apart, but they heard the giddy banter that 
passed. They approached. 

“It is regrettable, indeed, that woman must wait to be 
asked,” said Peter Wilkins, a smile in his eyes. “If she 
did the proposing, better selections would be made, I make 
no doubt. But as it is, I am sorry to add, that after 
marriage she usually dictates. What say you, Professor?” 

“To ascertain a girl’s age,” began the Professor, ut- 
terly ignoring the question, “examine her old copy of 
Lucile, and the passages marked ‘How true’ were done 
when she was sixteen.” 

“If life is a love failure — O I’m no pessimist,” laughed 
Mina. 

“Nuns make their love and life an abortion,” said 
Miss I. Single 

This startling statement took away the breath of every- 
body, and all paused. Had she been a novitiate for the 
nunnery once, and was there a great romance in her life? 


130 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


They looked at her, but there was not a sign of intuition 
in her non-speculative eyes. She well perceived the flut- 
ter. She leaped from her seat, an act of irrepressible vi- 
vacity and bonhommie, and piroutted like one who had 
danced in spangles. 

“Good folks,” she said beseechingly, “I don’t want 
you to mistake this yawning, if it may seem to be that, 
for I’m not bored, — not in the least. I couldn’t help 
this. Spontaneous combustion.” 

At the same time, at the farther side of the esplanade, 
Mina observed a stranger lurking along and seemingly 
spying upon them. No one else saw him. He seemed 
gray, and as best she could discern he had a mustache. 
He disappeared in a moment and was not seen again. His 
appearance was not of impressiveness sufficient to elicit a 
remark from Mina to any one. It was a mere passing 
affair, common at such places. 

But in all truth it was the same man that ex-Senator 
Wadsworth, Prof. P. Thomas Nelson, and Peter Wil- 
kins had so deftly analyzed at the hotel. 

“Indeed, if I may make so bold as to say it, I think 
Miss I. Single could excel at dancing,” said Clever Hes- 
perus, quite bookish enough to suit fastidious tastes, 
though lacking in emotional life and grace. 

“That’s youth bubbling up,” said Peter Wilkins, a 
grim hiatus in his round countenance. 

“I — age! Who said age!” cried Miss I. Single. “Age! 
I never intend to be a used-to-be or a used-to-do. But I 
intend to keep on smiling, being glad, to the end.” 

“That’s me! Pardon the solecism,” Peter begged. 
“I say, Christian Science or else Oslerize your old, dead, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


131 

foggy, malodorous, dreary, gloomy, sad, depressing, old- 
age feeling, and sacrifice to the waste-shop every harking- 
back reflection and lurking regret, and live in the sun- 
shine on the heights, out of harm’s way, out of the way 
of regret and tears and fruitless wishes.” Peter thought 
he had really said a clever thing, — he didn’t know. Few 
can know their best remarks. One never knows when he 
is saying something that is going to be remembered and 
quoted. 

“It is practically fatal to be struck and hurt with the 
idea that we are sick, or that we are growing old,” added 
Miss I. Single. 

“One of the most foolish ideas,” said Prof. P. Thomas 
Nelson, looking directly at Miss I. Single, “is to think 
one will ever get back to the old feeling and the old days 
of youth — never! We are traveling on — traveling on, 
and on, and still on, never back — on forward to the end ; 
and every moment is a change, and nothing returns or 
recurs again. The past is an unalterable record.” 

Both Mina and Miss I. Single specially glanced at him. 

“Monotony, sameness, is terrible to the young, and they 
will none of it,” observed Olive Pendell lightly. “Age 
less and less seeks change, alteration, and this state of 
fixity is a proof of age. Age doesn’t want its memories 
or its external suggestions altered. It’s different to look 
up the road and then travel to the other end and look 
back.” 

“The handicap of gray hairs,” said the Professor, sim- 
ply throwing out a suggestion, “is serious. Youth can’t 
intimately allign itself on equality with ‘hoary eld,’ and 
naturally seeks only its own. And as there are fewer old 

9 


132 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


people than young, the old naturally have to take retired 
back seats. But the truth is, youth seeks a ‘good time,’ 
and age is the master of business by long practice and per- 
fect familiarity. Young men for war, and old men for 
counsel, you know. Longfellow beautifully treats the 
idea in ‘Morituri Salutamus.’ ” 

“O, folks, how lugubrious you talk,” cried Miss I. 
Single, a sinful shadow marring her lovely face. “Which 
would you rather be — your neighbor or yourself?” 

“Or married?” quickly added Peter Wilkins. 

The game of tennis was again played, and the jostling 
of frivolous remarks and the shouts of gay young laughter 
went on, — as it should. 

At the conclusion of the game Clever Hesperus strolled 
aimlessly away across the esplanade with Miss I. Single. 
The Professor accompanied Mina home. And Peter 
Wilkins walked away with Olive. The game had de- 
termined this pairing. 

“I love to play tennis. It is refreshing and a health- 
giving game,” said Miss I. Single, manifesting faintly 
something of a studied effort to be graceful, despite the 
fact that the natural attraction to elicit grace was entirely 
wanting. 

“The joy of play begins with the child, and I say it 
with entire freedom from emotion that it is a blessing 
that it never dies out during one’s entire life. And yet 
it is my chief philosophy that the intellect should rule in 
life and the emotion be submerged.” Clever Hesperus 
measured the worth, fitness, and meaning of every word 
with the invariable rhetorical rule along side each one. 

There was a pause, wherein all conversation seemed 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


i33 


blocked like a game of chess sometimes, and wherein all 
suggestion was utterly wanting. The minds of both 
traveled on different missions and reached different re- 
sults. He was complimenting himself on his exceeding 
good luck in having gained the attention of so lovely and 
beautiful girl. She was thinking of the tangled mess that 
had brought her to Atlantic City and of her good fortune 
in meeting Mina Wadsworth. Aloud she wondered: 

“I wonder where Mith Gulliver is. Been absent all 
day.” 

“Mith Gulliver!” . 

“That’s my Mr. Mikado.” 

“Really I had not observed,” apologized Clever Hes- 
perus, somewhat disconcerted, because she had not been 
thinking of him in the interim. 


CHAPTER XIV 


A ND thus time wore on at this watering- 
place, friendships were intensified, romances 
were begun, dramas set in first act on the 
stage of life that were to affect the future, 
and personages crossed life-pathways or 
entered into other lives in such manner as to modify, in- 
fluence them more or less to the end of days. But these 
things were pleasant, a sort of idle trifling with the 
stupendous. Life is at any rate an incomprehensible fact. 
These recreative days were purloined from the strenuous 
lines, or grooves, into which most persons finally merge, 
and called days of rest. But most of the idlers and pleas- 
ure seekers have to persuade themselves with all the 
powers of logic that the happiness is real and unfeigned. 

The evening succeeding the game of tennis Mina and 
her mother were alone in their cottage. Ex-Senator 
Wadsworth had gone again to Washington City on mat- 
ters political. He was not always master of his time. 

“Where you been all day, Ben?” Mina asked of the 
colored servant, the custodian of the summer cottage 
when occupied by the Wadsworth family. 

“Jail!” 

“Jail, Ben!” 

“Yaasum, ben in jail.” 

“Why, Ben!” 

“All ’count ob a woman. Woman ah neber seen afore 

134 


APOLOGIES LOR LOVE 


i35 


in all my entire born nateral lifetime. Don’t knew her 
a tall. Come round talkin’ to me ’bout Miss Demeanor! 
Neber hea’d o’ heh a tall afore in all my bo’n days, 
suah, Miss Mina.” 

“What did you do, Ben?” 

“Noffen. I done noffen — noffen a tall, I tell you, — 
noffen. All a misbreak.” 

“Well, never mind that now, Ben. But have you 
seen to everything around ? That’s what I want to 
know now,” asked Mrs. Wadsworth. 

“Yaasm — ah — yaasm — eber t’ing — lef nothin’ out — 
nothin’ a tall.” 

“That’s all, Ben,” said Mrs. Wadsworth. 

Then Ben withdrew to the stable, where he had a 
cozy room upstairs. He looked after the match blacks, 
the carriages, and the touring car. 

“I think, Mina,” said Mrs. Wadsworth in no petulant 
tone, it needs be said, “that Ben has been indulging some 
in the cup that cheers. I know he is a good faithful 
fellow, remiss in nothing, but he has been guilty of some 
misdemeanor, no doubt. Perhaps insulting to some one. 
Though he is not one to do that.” 

“Perhaps. But Ben is all right now,” assured Mina. 
“And the dog Winfrey is within doors, I know.” 

The fact is, Ben had been in jail five hours. It was 
a case of mistaken identity. The right fellow was found, 
and that released Ben. 

Mina and her mother retired some little time before 
midnight. They were soon in dreamless slumber, soft as 
a mossy bank where the Nereids hold their celestial 
revels. All was perfectly silent within and without, 


136 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


save the rush of the wind and the lapse of the waves on 
the pebbly beach. 

At an hour not know to Mina something awoke her, 
some unusual confusion in the house. In the dead silence 
that succeeded in the room, the rush of blood through 
her attentive ears was like the flowing sound of distant 
waterfalls. 

She lifted upon her elbow and listened, but not a 
sound was heard. The darkness was too intense to per- 
ceive anything. And yet she imagined she saw a spot a 
little darker than the rest of the blackness. It might be 
some one pausing for a moment to await results. It was, 
she conceived, about the size and shape of a man, though 
the darkness was too dense to be certain. She stared in 
intense and breathless attitude. If it should move, the 
evidence would be convincing. For no man was in the 
house on retiring, and none should be there now. 

Her mother was peacefully slumbering on, her breath 
coming in measured and heavy respirations. Mina de- 
bated what to do. There was no doubt something 
awaked her. And yet it might not be what she imagined. 
At all events she saw no immediate need of rousing her 
mother. She would see first. 

Now that it occurred to her, it might be the dog Win- 
frey, a very large Scotch collie. She would go on and 
clear up the probably groundless fear in her mind. No 
harm could result from investigation she thought. She had 
practically concluded it was all needless alarm. There 
was not a sound unaccountable. The shadow was ab- 
solutely motionless. Bah, she had no cause for fear, she 
laughed at herself. What she fancied was a noise within, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


137 


may have been an uncertain impression made on her mind 
at the very instant of awaking. She would see. 

Silently, softly, deftly she arose, clad in her kimono, 
and as she stood in the darkness disconnected, as it were, 
from all things and alone upon a hazard, she listened 
breathlessly. Not a sound but the regular slumber sus- 
pirations of her dear mother. Painful suspense. 

The woolfooted dog approached in the solid darkness, 
and touched her hand with his cold nose. Then she 
“almost let go and screamed,” as she said afterward. A 
second conclusion came before she could carry out the 
first impression to scream and suppressed the impulse to 
manifest her great fright. After reassuring herself she 
cautiously approached the suspected shadow of a man. It 
was only her imagination shaping a man out of the dresser. 
The evidence that her too quick imagination had deceived 
her, now made her strong and resolute. However at 
fault her eyes may have been, there was still a lingering 
feeling that her ears may not have been entirely at fault. 
And yet they obtained their impression while her brain 
was not clearly conscious. 

Carefully opening the door into the drawing-room, she 
stepped almost noiselessly within, followed closely by 
Winfrey. Desperate moment! She paused to listen. 
Then she gently closed and locked the door. Her idea 
was to protect her mother in any emergency that might 
arise. The key was removed and retained in her hand. 

With perhaps more haste than she was aware of, due 
to fear, she finally found an electric bulb and flashed on 
the light. Coolly, — or was it fear, — she glanced around. 
But the light seemed to be friendly and a whole body- 


138 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


guard in itself. She fairly thanked it for its presence. 
She was now not blind and alone. Instantly she stood in 
the sheltering light. Or was it truely sheltering? The 
darkness had been conquered by a touch. 

The dog bridled, but remained near her. She read 
his alarm. She would see whatever happened. Her reso- 
lution was desperation. 

No, her ears had not deceived her, nor was her imagi- 
nation entirely at fault. She saw what, by quick instan- 
taneous decision, she decided to pretend not to see. A 
man’s eyes glared and glistened and snapped at her from 
behind the Davenport. He had something in his hand, 
and she knew him to be a robber. He was so masked that 
his best friend would not have known him. She knew 
the one thought in this unknown parasite’s mind was to 
escape. And he would upon the slightest opportunity. 
For him circumstances were approximating the desper- 
ate. And he must extricate himself from this ugly situ- 
ation as best he could and that very quickly. Mina in- 
stinctively comprehended his mental and emotional status. 

She was not impressed that she must scream. So she 
uttered not a sound. She turned her back very coolly 
to the fellow. She could half interpret his impressions. 
Singular that this robber whom she dreaded so much 
should occupy so intense and intimate relationship in 
her mind. She stood under the glare of the light a mo- 
ment. It was an intense, extreme effort. It required 
exceeding great resolution. She stood with more deliber- 
ation under such an extreme tax upon her courage than 
she thought she possessed. It was the emergency that de- 
veloped her. She was surprised at her composure, in the 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


139 


exigency of the moment. But there was great tension. 
Her heart was fairly thundering within. The critical in- 
stant almost exceeded her powers to meet it. 

Now, gently and with skillfully disguised tread, meant 
to speak the palpable lie to the vagabond intruder that he 
was undiscovered, she went to the opposite door, opened 
it, and hastily passed through. Quickly as possible, even 
with delaying haste, she closed the door, leaned against it, 
and locked it. The dog Winfrey was locked in with the 
burglar. 

“Now Eve got you,” she said to herself, drawing a 
first free, long breath. 

She hurried to the sitting-room, “phoned” briefly to 
the police station the situation, and then sat down to 
listen and to wait. She would not awaken and frighten 
her mama for “ever so much.” Besides, having the fel- 
low safely cornered, it was needless to percipitate a scene. 
Her mama, however, had been found most collected in 
very trying conditions. Then she wondered how the 
burglar and the dog were passing the time. It was quite 
impossible for the fellow to convert Winfrey into a 
friend. He would have to shoot or stab the dog to es- 
cape him. It was not practciable to mesmerize the dog 
into obedience. The fellow had better remain absolutely 
quiet, or he would precipitate war in which no quarter 
would be shown or flag of truce respected. Mina lis- 
tened. All was still within. 

In a brief space of time two bicycle policemen arrived 
hurriedly to the rescue. She met them at the veranda 
steps and briefly explained. She led the two blue-coats to 
the door. The keyhole showed the light still burning. 


140 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Doubtless the undesirable company had intimidated the 
fellow and kept him behind the Davenport. 

The blue-coated custodians of the peace expeditiously 
and quietly unlocked the door, threw it open wide, and 
stepped within with drawn weapons. Mina passed in 
also, and quickly closed the door, to cut off possible es- 
cape. 

“Come out of there,” said one of the policemen, draw- 
ing down his steel-glittering weapon upon him. With 
no effort at defense the man, trapped like a rat, twisted 
out from behind his hiding place. He left the box he 
had captured. It proved to be a case of jewels estimated 
to be worth a hundred thousand dollars. He stood up, 
with head down. His face was dark with stain and his 
coat was worn at the elbows. In this case the axiom 
did not apply, that a coat however worn at the elbows 
may be buttoned over a generous breast. 

The officers took him away. But as he went down the 
veranda steps handcuffed, he held up his wrists and said 
to Mina: 

“I thank you for these adornments, Miss Wadsworth. 
It is not your fault; it is mine.” 

And still a common burglar might know her name. 
Nevertheless the manner of his remark seemed to have 
more in it, seemed to imply something common to them 
both, than might seem at casual notice. Why should he 
address her at all. She was a little mystified. She turned 
back into the house in wonder and speculation. The ex- 
citement of the last half hour was subsiding into a nervous 
quaver. The relaxation precipitated a feeling of weari- 
ness and weakness. But she would confess nothing to her 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


141 

mother about this. It was all over now and too late for 
a scare. 

She awoke her mother in the light. Then she narrated 
the whole story. It was a marvelous thing — astonishing, 
overwhelming. The mother was confounded with awe 
mingled with fear. 

“How could you do it, Mina! I fairly tremble when 
you tell me about it.” 

“It was just one of those things that came to me, and 
the rest was easy.” 

“My dear girl, what danger you was in!” And the 
mother clung to her daughter and kissed her, as if to as- 
sure herself. 

“Not very dangerous, but thrilling.” 

“And you are sure you are not hurt, Mina?” 

“I escaped whole,” laughed Mina. 

The morning papers told all about it, and lauded 
Miss Mina Wadsworth very highly for her plucky con- 
duct. It was a bold deed, indeed, to face alone a rash, 
daring burglar, who hesitates not to take life when it 
comes to a point of detection or capture. And the bold 
rascal had feloniously seized the very valuable jewel-case, 
and would have been off with it safe in five minutes more, 
or less time. To speak the truth, it was a brave act to 
step into the blackness of the darkness of the room alone 
with a dangerous burglar. Mina confessed that she had 
“a sort of creepy sensation at the moment.” 

The papers went on to state, what Mina did not know, 
that the prisoner had escaped. As the officers were tak- 
ing him up the steps at police headquarters, at a moment 
when his captors presumed he was securely bagged, he 


142 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


turned, fled, dashed over the side of the steps, struck 
the concrete pavement with a jar, and quickly disappeared 
down the alley in the darkness. But the vigilant con- 
servators of public decorum, so the papers said, — and “the 
papers never lie,” — were “exhausting every effort” to re- 
capture the fugitive, and they “had every assurance they 
would yet overhaul him.” 

Every one of Mina’s friends there called on her the 
succeeding day, and roundly commended her for her very, 
very brave act. She was not fully aware, till her friends 
repeated it and repeated it, that she had done anything 
extraordinary. And she was in some pain, as one pass- 
ing through an ordeal, to be obliged with smiling grace 
and pleasant demeanor to suffer all the flattering things 
they said. She had captured a burglar alone, and had 
not screamed, or fainted, or exhibited any feminine antics 
about it. She was a “hero” with the “ine” elided. And 
it was not fit for her to deny it or reject the honor they 
insisted in thrusting upon her. The manly contests of 
the stadium could not confer more certain or higher 
honors, nor were the victors in the games more in evi- 
dence than she. It was really embarrassing to feel herself 
the object of particular attention and the recipient of 
so many fine remarks. She had done nothing but what 
she should have done, and she could not understand why 
some folks put so much feeling and meaning and senti- 
ment in it. 

Prof. P. Thomas Nelson was the first to congratulate 
her. 

“Not to be fulsome by too broad personal remarks,” 
he said with scholarly distinction, “I wish to say you have 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


i43 


done what few young ladies have the courage to do. It 
is quite true, it was no small thing.” 

Olive Pendell met the Professor as he was leaving. 
She rushed in, girl like, and throwing her arms around 
Mina cried: 

“My dear girl, how could you do it! It was an 
awful dangerous thing to do.” 

Peter Wilkins came before Olive had gone, and bow- 
ing with distinguishing bend observed : 

“I’m profoundly disgusted with you, Miss Wadsworth. 
In a minute you have achieved more distinction than I 
can in half a century. Moral: It is not in us to do 
it; it is in you.” 

And when Clever Hesperus said in a sort of conde- 
scending exactness she smiled : 

“There be those who are feeble, but strong; are timid, 
but brave; are little, but great; are unpretentious, but 
executive. I congratulate you on the splendid capture you 
made. ‘’Tis true ’tis pity; and pity ’tis it is true’ that 
the armed executors of the law and the keepers of the 
peace bungled and let the captive escape.” 

And Miss I. Single came with her friend, Miss Alice 
Moore-Greenfield, of New York, and both gurgled their 
pride in a “sister” so brave and true. They said much 
that can not be untangled here and put in good order 
upon the printed page. 

When they had gone, Mith Gulliver, Mr. Mikado, 
came, and with a spirited handshake allowed she had 
managed the capture with more skill than Old Sleuth 
could have done, or the Pinkertons, or the Scotland Yards, 


144 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


or Nick Carter, or that mythical chap ycleped Sherlock 
Holmes. 

Many, many more, some entire strangers, came, and 
said nice things. It was almost a levee. 

Her father telegraphed from Washington City: — “The 
morning papers have told me all. Thanks, dear, brave, 
good girl that you are. I am proud of you. You are 
my girl.” 


CHAPTER XV 


T HE arrival of Miss Alice Moore-Greenfield 
from New York at Atlantic City was an 
event that developed many things, — all 
without design, — blind fate. The life story 
of this very young girl illustrates how 
lightly the marriage vow is regarded by most girls to-day, 
and the ill consequences that naturally are the outcome 
of such light and airy-made sexual unions. 

The problem of a life partner is a great and exceeding 
grave one, — one that must be abided by for all time to 
one or the other, — one that leaves traces across the heart 
like the slimy pathway of the eel across the carpet, — 
one that recurs unbidden at all subsequent hours of life, 
— one that if not wisely made “at the last it biteth like 
a serpent and stingeth like an adder.” In very truth an 
ill-mated marriage is the “unpardonable sin.” 

Marriage a la mode is “done up” in singular packages, 
some of them labelled “elopement,” some are a family 
ceremony, some a church and ring ceremony, some a civil 
or legal ceremony, some a religious ceremony, some motor 
all the way down into South Carolina for papers that are 
a perpetual injunction against all divorce proceedings, 
some like the Christian Science rite of a solemn mutual 
pledge, some prefer the Indian way of natural selection, 
and some the theosophical method where spooks are in- 
145 


146 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


voiced as witnesses, and so on ad infinitum. The pre- 
sumption in this last form of marriage is that spooks can 
not witness a ceremony unless it has this only genuine 
label or blown-in-the-bottle stamp. And the aboriginal 
ceremony is not in vogue among the Caucassians in this 
day. In this ceremony the brave steals up behind his in- 
tended, strikes her down with a club, and carries her 
away while insensible. 

Now, Miss Alice Moore-Greeenfield was a “case,” a 
girl of measurable depth but of a daring, imperious will 
that set aside all conventionalities. She could do it with- 
out very grave scandal, because she had many millions 
behind her, and because she was Miss Alice Moore- 
Greenfield. 

When Alice entered what was stigmatized as a “co.-ed.” 
college, she did it more for a “lark” than for real profit 
to herself. At the time she had not passed through more 
than half her teens, but she was “in for” everything that 
had “fun” in it. 

A new rule of the college prohibited the young men 
from “keeping the company of the young women.” The 
students resisted the rule, called a council, and framed 
a petition in the fashion of a round robin requesting the 
repeal of the obnoxious rule. The young men freely 
talked, that if they could not be with their sweethearts 
they would organize a walkout. The girls were loyal 
to the boys, and declared the rule an “infringement of 
their rights as coeds.” 

Alice’s dress reached only to her shoe-tops, but she 
echoed a general sentiment when she said: “The idea! 
Gracious! Just think of it! Daren’t speak to the 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


H7 


boys even at chapel exercises. We won’t stand for it! 
Never!” 

The president of the school said that “the school is for 
business, not a pleasure resort, not a courting place, but 
it is the guardian of these associated young folks in the 
absence of the parents.” 

But Alice and others actually forsook the school be- 
cause of the rule, — not for a sound, sane principle in- 
volved. The matter of self, of emotion, decided their 
conduct, not level judgment. 

The faculty had reached the conclusion, after some 
discussion in secret meetings, that too much time, energy, 
attention, and interest were consumed in clubs, “parties,” 
late hours, picnics, hayrides, long buggy rides at unseemly 
hours, extended walks along sequestered streets late at 
night, social gatherings, visits, and all the stress of modern 
society carried into colleges and added to the college 
duties, already onerous. These things were distracting 
and demoralizing, and defeated the purpose of the col- 
lege, — to educate men and women for a better life than 
is that of the “common herd.” 

The opposition to the rule was so persistent and cor- 
rupting of discipline that the faculty finally modified it, 
and compromised with the recalcitrants by setting apart 
an hour a week for social relationship between the sexes. 
Many romantic incidents occurred in violation of the 
modified rule. However, before the concession the “im- 
pulsive” Alice had shaken the dust from her feet and de- 
parted for home. 

Her father was a man of exceeding great wealth. He 
was a physician of national renown, and a man of high 

10 


148 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


intellectual attainments. By shrewd investments his 
money had increased in tenfold ratio. Some of his articles 
on sanative and preventive medicine, information gained 
by special investigations and published in medical maga- 
zines, brought him into touch with the medical fraternity 
of Europe, and on two occasions he had traveled there to 
meet in general medical congress. His practice in New 
York was large. His family took a leading function in 
the best social circle. His affability was his distinction 
and his success. 

But Alice was a girl whose “impulses” overbore all 
rules of reason and society, and her madcap pranks, so 
daring and refreshing and out of the usual, brought her 
into relationship with gossamer and nebulous tongues, and 
she was a well discussed girl, — in a way. Dark and lurid 
things were said of her, but none of them were true. She 
was perfectly conscious of her innocence, and the shadows 
of the gossamer tongues brought not a tear to her clean 
conscience. On the other hand it brought defiance and 
resistance. Not quite in the circle of the “400,” but on 
the ill-defined borderland of it, she was in no way re- 
pudiated by society. She came and went as before. Her 
reputation was her own, and her freakish little deeds 
seemed to be more the effervescence of youth’s immaturity 
than the well-planned, cool-headed, dare-and-do despera- 
tion of veteran wrongdoers. She was classically beautiful 
and fabulously rich, and these were salves for all ugly 
rumors of the irresponsible Madam Gossip. Her pic- 
tures were painted by well-known portrait artists and re- 
produced in periodicals. In the drawing-rooms her graci- 
ful, fairy-like dancing was commended very highly, and 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


149 


her wonderful taste in adapting colors and styles of gowns 
to her type of American beauty enhanced her loveliness so 
that it was a topic of general talk and often spoken of 
in the society columns of the daily press. 

After her escapade in the “co.-ed.” college, she was 
put in the hands of private tutors, and then sent to a 
finishing school. The dreary days of reiterating drill 
over, she traveled abroad to perfect her lingual attain- 
ments. When she returned a string of suitors pressed 
around her, and her entrance into society was like the 
dazzling splendor of a great comet. She seemed fated 
for anything not in the conventional or regular course of 
human social events, and 

“With a heart for any fate, 

Still achieving, still pursuing,” 

she went on from frolicksomeness to madness. At last 
the climax came that sent her to Atlantic City and to 
the attention of the reader. Fate seemed to attend her 
“impulsiveness” (which in some degree was a hothouse 
development of her pampering, demoralizing great 
wealth), and Atropos was as busy with her as she was 
in the fates of the characters in Euripides tragedies. And 
in a half-bantering spirit she tragically exulted in her 
unloveliness, as she described her feminine bravado. She 
had an “indigent contentment,” which she explained to 
mean “poverty-striken contentment;” that is, a content- 
ment that would not be satisfied with the common, the 
usual, but must need extraneous aid ; a contentment made 
a beneficiary of “stolen amusements,” as it were; a con- 


150 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


tentment bribed with gifts of pleasure, pauperized and 
made dependent on others for entertainments that would 
make an otherwise miserable existence passably endur- 
able. Scandal, — she dared it to smirch her. 

And here follows the evidence that convicts her of 
being just what the foregoing analysis paints her. 

One evening not long since she was at the home of her 
friend Gilson Lovelace, and was in a very lively, cheery, 
frolicksome mood with the Lovelace girls, girls about her 
own age, but much less demonstrative than she in per- 
sonal deportment. In the midst of the laughter and 
jesting conversation, the telephone bell rang. Instantly, 
like the fair maid of Ginevra, with a smile on her lips 
and a jest in her eyes. Alice ran to answer it. Before the 
family could respond, though a call not meant for her, 
she danced to the instrument. 

“I’ll answer — I’ll answer!” she shrieked in laughter, 
fairly fleeing to be ahead of all. 

“Yes,” she responded on putting the receiver to her 
left ear (habit made it awkward to listen with the right), 
“this is Mr. Lovelace’s.” The gentleman at the other 
end of the line recognized a strange voice, and she an- 
swered very gravely that she was a stranger to him. Then 
Bertha Lovelace, by speaking into the transmitter over 
Alice’s shoulder, introduced Alice to a Mr. Ron Corn- 
wallis. He had met the Lovelace girls the evening be- 
fore for the first time, at a social function and he had 
called over the phone to make a “date” with them. He 
desired to cultivate their acquaintance, to a flattering 
social extent at least. They had much money, were pass- 
ably lively and cultured, — why not. His name was an 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


151 

English name, and the Lovelace girls meant, — why not. 

Considerable lively, jolly, bantering talk was inter- 
changed over the “phone,” and the gentleman noticed a 
suggestive , daring element in the responses of the bright 
young lady. She had elements of spacious audacity, a 
merry voice that tingled like harp strings, a bright and 
witty and quick return, — she was a novelty, something 
new r , spicy, and flavorous. He was bold, careless, and 
yet guarded with the suavity of genuine, careful social 
experience. Each transmitted a spice over the wire to the 
other that was quickly caught but could not be defined. It 
was not love ; it was the spirit of romance ; it was a 
mystery demanding explanation. 

“I assure you I admire your style,” said the male voice. 
That was all Alice knew. 

“And I your audacity,” she flung back without a 
chuckle. 

“And your voice and spirit I am absolutely in love 
with,” of course disregarding her words. As long as she 
dared to listen — why not. 

“I pity your taste,” she said. 

“I’m dead in love at first sight,” he said calmly. 

“I’m old, and have the features of the original maid 
that was doomed to stay at home always and a day.” 

“My judgment belies your words. I repeat I’m in 
love with you,” he said. “Besides, old maids display 
marvelous knowledge of babies.” 

“I’m as deep in love with you,” she daringly, rashly 
said, violating every rule of beautiful maidenly reserve. 

“Then w’hat hinders our marrying,” he said in ban- 
tering jest. 


152 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Nothing,” she said. It was all an eccentric telephone 
conversation, meaningless. 

“Then name the day, — I dare you.” 

“Are you game?” she returned hastily. 

“Never more in earnest in my life.” 

“Pm yours.” 

“When?” 

“To-morrow.” 

“What castle shall I storm to-morrow to capture 
you?” he put seriously. 

“Fifth Avenue and Broadway.” 

“What hour?” 

“Three p. m.,” she answered. 

“I’ll meet you there.” 

“Yours truly.” 

The receivers were hung up. All this courtship and 
elopement scheme was planned in the presence of the 
Lovelace family, and of course it was all a joke. Nothing 
serious in it, and nobody even dreamed there was, — ex- 
cept Alice. 

After the jest and laugh about it, all was dropped and 
forgotten as one of the little spicy happenings in the very 
commonplace lives of these good girls, — as is the lives of 
most girls who are bound by the saving laws of social 
custom. Alice did not forget. And no one could sur- 
mise that she entertained the matter seriously. Not a 
hint was dropped that the jest had seated itself in her 
heart. She kept her own counsel as diligently as a thief. 

The next day at “three p. m.,” dressed in a marvelous 
walking suit, she appeared at the trysting place, unat- 
tended, unchaperoned, unhearlded, undisciplined, unafraid, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


i53 


alone, a stranger. She had no hesitancy about how to 
find the “man in the case.” She would know him; he 
would know her. He, of course, would look searchingly 
over the hotel parlors, and that would reveal him. It 
would only remain for her to reveal herself to him. 
Would she do it? 

She looked about as she entered the parlor, and seeing 
no one that corresponded to her idea she sat down to 
wait. In a short time a man of splendid presence, fine 
address, graceful ease, polished manners, a real gentle- 
manly look and dress, but a fraction older than she 
imagined, entered. He filled the lively description of 
the Lovelaces. She knew him at once. Girl instinct. 
Her stare and emotion brought him to her. 

“Beg your pardon, but — ,” bowing. 

“I’m game,” arising promptly. 

“Miss Alice Moore-Greenfield?” he asked. 

“Mr. Ron Cornwallis?” she answered by return query. 

“A pal well-met,” he said familiarly. 

His eye, keen, small, penetrating, steady, hard, daz- 
zling, had something of a treacherous symptom in it, she 
felt rather than discovered. He was a person above the 
medium size, of splendidly perfect tone, but of a washed- 
out, arid enthusiasm. His intensity was by no means 
the parallel of hers. And his forehead was low and wide, 
hair thin, long straight nose, long protruding chin, and 
thin lips cleanly shaved. In up-to-date dress and color, 
and in unconscious ease in it, she noted the attractive 
man. He was not new to her. Others were measur- 
ably like him. His externals appealed more to her than 
his reality. A full, open, clear voice, every word was 


154 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


distinctively heard; they were not dropped out at the 
auditor in tangled skins, nor were they confounded into 
a mere wavy string of sound. 

He summed her up in one word — “smart.” She was 
superbly gowned; he had secured some knowledge of her 
ancestry and wealth; she had not a syllable about him. 
she had not cared to know. 

There was no delay in the arrangement of the matter 
of marriage. It is just to observe that neither was serious 
about it, and therefore harmony easily secured. They 
would proceed at once to a civil magistrate. He was 
surprised, and yet not surprised, at her ready accession to 
the proposition of a civil marriage. But when he named 
some stranger to her, she interposed a peremptory no, 
and suggested a Justice of the Peace that she by chance 
knew. Without objection, strange to say, he assented 
to this man. He surmised that opposition would be fatal 
to this most peculiar and interesting romance. It was in- 
deed a spicy novelty to him, so unusual. Moreover the 
girl was mature and supremely lovely, and not without 
a financial attraction. 

He hailed an electric hansom, and they went to the 
magistrate’s office, in an unfrequented, Rip Van Winkle- 
like place, romantic for its solitariness and sleepiness. On 
the w T ay, for a wonder, he offered her no familiarities, no 
divine speeches of the poetic afflatus style, no soft pres- 
sure of the hand, and she invited none. In point of fact 
she had prepared herself to resist every improper advance 
to the very utmost. It was most natural to expect them. 
The unknown “guy,” as she called him, deported himself 
in a very creditable manner, and her test proved him a 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


155 


gentleman. And now that he offered no caresses, some- 
how the real spice seemed cut out of the whole reckless 
affair. She never once permitted her eyes to rest on him, 
or linger in his dazzling gray eyes that at moments had 
an uncertain hue of purple. But he sat with eyes full 
upon her, devouring her, and speculating about this 
strange young soul’s life and what such an eccentric es- 
sence would naturally bring forth in the future. In a 
short time he would have the mastery of her, and then he 
would see what she would do. Rash girl. 

When they stepped from the hansom, she surreptitously 
slipped a bit of note into the hands of the driver. Then 
they quietly entered the office of the Justice of the Peace, 
explained the case as far as necessary, and he united 
them “as man and wife” according to the authority of the 
law vested in him as an officer of the state. 

They paused long enough to allow Ron Cornwallis to 
fee the magistrate liberally, and then went out upon the 
pavement. No one was in sight. He said as one with 
authority: 

“We will now go to the railroad station, cross over 
into New Jersey, and take the train to some interior town 
where we will remain quietly till the novelty of our mar- 
riage has worn itself into a common acceptance in the 
minds of all.” 

“Do you have any fears about it?” she dashed out in 
a tone of unlimited independence. She saw desertion the 
day after. 

“Why, no, of course not,” he returned quickly, catch- 
ing a note of jar in her query. 

“There is nobody to placate. I am monarch of myself. 


156 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


My parents are dead. You need give yourself no uneasi- 
ness. Nothing to hinder our going home at once and 
proclaiming the fact.” She was now disposed to taunt 
him in Machiavelian manner. 

“That is not my plan,” he allowed. 

“However, if you have no objections, I will return to 
my own home at once,” she said blandly. She saw 
through him. 

“But I do object, seriously object.” 

“Why?” 

“I dare not now accompany you to your home, and 
you know it. There is something false in your proposi- 
tion. I must say pointedly to you that I’ve been malevol- 
ently deceived, imposed upon, and by a chit of girl,” he 
said rising in his spectacular indignation. 

“Hello, Petruchio!” 

“Indeed, Katharina!” 

“I believe, Mr. Cornwallis, I only agreed to marry 
you, and not to be set upon, nor to acccompany you any- 
where, or live with you an instant.” Wise girl! “I’ve 
fulfilled my part of the contract, and if you will excuse 
me from making any further contracts with you I will 
relieve you of my presence.” 

“Mrs. Cornwallis, the marriage was legal, you are 
mine, and you must obey me — ” 

“Beg your pardon, Mr. Cornwallis, I didn’t agree to 
obey, nor to one thing more than I have faithfully per- 
formed. I can not think you so tender as not to know 
what you were doing. You seem to be of a maturer age 
than that — not a boy, not bom yesterday. You can not 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


157 


deceive me into the belief that a ‘chit of a girl’ deceived 
you in an affair of this character.” 

“I command you, by the English marriage regulations, 
to obey me.” 

“You do, Petruchio!” 

“And I mean to be obeyed.” 

“No doubt of it, frenzied sir.” 

“And I shall be obeyed.” 

“What a pity that your fine frenzy is lost for the want 
of an appreciative audience.” 

“By the terms of the law I mean what I say.” 

“It would be better, if you did not repeat, Mr. Corn- 
wallis.” 

“There is redress for all this.” His remark was 
oracular. 

His mental comment about her — “smart” — was cor- 
rect. He was wiser than he was ten minutes ago, and 
yet he knew it not. If he should prove to be an ad- 
venturer, he could obtain some of her money through 
legal processes brought by a shyster lawyer. The girl 
was less independent of him than she knew, and the 
“lark,” might prove disastrous. At length she said with 
hauteur: 

“Do you desire to prolong this flirtation?” 

“I do not comprehend you?” 

“Am I at fault for that?” she flaunted out. 

“You are my wife.” 

“You are my husband, I presume, and I am ashamed to 
confess that I am not very proud of you.” 

“You owe me — ” 

“Nothing, sir, nothing. Have you enjoyed the game 


158 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


so far? So have I. The play is played out, and here 
the asbestos falls. We part here, and we shall never 
meet again upon the plane we are now upon. Bon voyage 
to you.” 

She sprang into the hansom, kissed her hand good-bye 
to him, and before he fairly understood she was swiftly 
flying down the street. The man steering the hansom 
caught a sense of the play from her note, and was ready 
when she entered the novel vehicle. 

Mr. Ron Cornwallis was left standing in the street, 
staring like a defeated man. The last words of “his 
wife” finally assumed a sense of desertion. He felt he 
was “sucking his thumbs,” figuratively speaking. He 
plotted to countercheck her game, if it was the last 
thing he should do in the world. 

The exigencies of this story demand that this luckless 
benedict shall remain here on the street for a few mo- 
ments. 

Alice, without a shadow of regret, or a tinge of shame 
that her conduct would smirch her good name, returned 
home, openly and gleefully acknowledged her escapade, 
and explained: 

“He dared me, and I never take a dare.” 

“But you are Misses now, no longer Miss, and are 
Mrs. Ron Cornwallis, you know,” said the Lovelace 
girls. 

“No, I’m still Alice Moore-Greenfield and nothing 
more, and never will be anything more,” she said defi- 
antly. 

Her father had died on a steamer on a return trip 
from Europe, and Alice was the sole heir of all her 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


159 


father’s great wealth. She was a ‘Well young girl,” 
rich, giddy, fashionable, but here and there one pointed to 
her as a “speckled bird.” But nothing was ever posi- 
tively known against her. The reader has seen all the 
evil there is in her life. 

While she was under the confusion incident to her un- 
warranted conduct, wrong and unlicensed in general, she 
stole away from New York and arrived at Atlantic City, 
in a genuine directoire gown and a “merry widow” hat. 
Undirected, ungoverned, she was destined to the sen- 
sational and extreme. 

The first thing she did was to hunt up her very close 
friend, Miss I. Single, and in confidence relate her latest 
eccentricity. The mutual confidence of these two girls 
was their own well-kept secret, and each knew all about 
the other. 

They had just called on Mina Wadsworth, glorying 
in her splendid pluck, complimenting her upon her shrewd 
capture of the house-breaker, and saying many other 
things that can not be recorded here — needless, and per- 
haps meddlesome. They w r ould object to a repetition of 
it, it is very certain. 


CHAPTER XVI 



IARS must have long memories, and so must 
thieves and roues. 


“I have no other wish under God’s world, 
Miss I. Single, but to faithfully serve you. 
I call God to witness the truth of this, and 


I h©pe he may strike me dead if it is not true. I will 


sacrifice my life, you know, to do your will and bid, and 
I say I never yet have failed any one, or failed to do what 


I say I will. You know I’m all right, and mean all 
right.” 


Mith Gulliver was standing at the edge of the ver- 
anda, looking away, for he had not the honesty to look 
his interlocutor in the eyes. Miss I. Single was half con- 
cealed by a woodbine that partly filled the space from 
the floor to the frieze. There was an evident effort to 
shield herself from the mid-morning sun. 

“Have done with your cut and dried preamble,” she 
cut in, nervously impatient, a manifestation so different 
from what she makes herself seem to others. 

“Well, you know — ” 

“I want to know what you know positively,” she said 
with explosive emphasis upon each word. 

“I was — I was just going to say that I had a clew — 
I say a clew — of Nero Pensive, and I deem it very im- 
portant, yea most significant, — even more than this, quite 
valuable. Listen — let me tell you what it is. It is — 
I have a clew, I say, that Nero Pensive is not in Phila- 


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161 


delphia any more, but is traveling incog., or perhaps un- 
der a resumed name not his own, out some’ers in the 
great west. I understand he would give his life, no 
doubt, to find Dean McBarron.” 

“No doubt. He’s that kind of man! And so the rara 
avis has eluded you again?” 

“He’s a duced slick citizen, worst ever, and he flees 
de coop with the greatest sang-froid, and is gone with 
the greatest of ease, no one knows where — gone.” 

“What is ‘flees de coop,’ I want to know,” she asked, 
less curious than she seemed. 

“Escapes, breaks jail, gets away, tw r enty-threes, skid- 
doos, vamoses the ranch, levants, flees, hides from jus- 
tice, — ” 

“I understand — I understand — I understand!” 

He peered into her face through the honesuckle leaves, 
his face possessing a puzzled air. He said: 

“I shall hunt for him, hunt him up, and find him, 
too, even if he travels the main-traveled, crowded road to 
hades. I’ll get him, sure, and bring him to you, as you 
wish.” 

“When?” she cried in painful suspense. She was 
wrought up. She evidently hated Nero Pensive, — hated 
him as if he had done her a grave injury. And had she 
been in a confessional she would have said she had grave 
reasons, or at least sufficient reasons for disliking him. 
Wonder what they were! 

“Soon,” he answered promptly. 

" How soon?” 

“Not long.” 

“Do it quickly.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


162 

She flung back at him a trite “good morning,” dis- 
missing him with it, as she hurried, but for no valid rea- 
son, and yet for very good reasons too to herself, across 
the shadow-flecked floor. Mith Gulliver puzzled a little, 
but it was too deep for him. No amount of schooling 
could supply him with brains sufficient to unravel the 
puzzle. Was she beginning to suspect him of duplicity. 
He walked off looking seriously meditative. The dis- 
covery of his social lese majeste would indeed affect his 
income. But then — 

“O, well, she was just impatient that he is not found, 
and is not next to my spying upon her for Nero. Nero’s 
a very liberal payer for the service I do for him. I’m 
really and firstly his paid spy, before hers, and it is most 
happy to be on intimate terms with her, and be paid in 
addition by her for playing the spy on her. To be sure, 
I say, she’s a nice-met, handsome woman, and I say it 
for a fact it is a nice thing to be in familiar relations with 
her, specially in public. There was a time when I hit 
London with only a pair of dirty cuffs and collar on, and 
when I ate at the cheapest boarding-house I could find; 
but look at me — see me now. See ! All by my own skill 
and smartness and shrewdness and wisdom — all my own. 
Nero is sometimes mighty hard to endure; mighty nigh 
past all present endurance, — he’s mad. But he pays well, 
I must say that for him — pays well. I’m ‘wise’ to the 
principle, ‘Never criticise the powers that be; and stand 
in with the boss.’ I mayn’t be big enough to crack a 
joke, let alone crack a nut like him, as he once said to 
me, but I know which side my cake’s buttered. The 
earth is sure ’nough big a plenty to turn round in without 
running over others.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


A DECANTER of old sour-mash, “straight 
goods,” sat on the table between them at 
the second-class hotel in New York. Nero 
Pensive was not cultivating social distinc- 
tion just then, for very good reasons, none 
of which would be confided to his spy, who was paid to dog 
the heels of others. It was his theory that if a man could 
be false to one, even though paid to be, he could be false 
to another for mercenary consideration, and the longest 
purse would win all the spy-detective’s secrets. So he was 
not confiding in Mith Gulliver. 

Mith had no real conception of the number or gravity 
of the secrets of this washed-out roue, but he was gifted 
with good horse sense sufficient not to probe. This was 
the only way to “keep on the good side of” a man, to “play 
next to the boss,” and bleed his purse in figures of two’s 
and three’s. And Mith was ready for any exigency for 
money. 

They “chicked” glasses and passed the contents to that 
avernus of the body where every decrepit thing travels af- 
ter passing the portcullis of the lips. 

“I must tell you that I have veni, vidi, vici the old gal,” 
said Mith Gulliver. 

“What!” heroically cutting. 

“I have talked with Clarissa Harlow at Atlantic City, 
and I’ve come here to New York to tell you all about it, — 

163 


11 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


164 

a clean breast of the whole truth. She thinks you’re trav- 
eling incog, in the big west some’ers under a resumed 
name not all your own, and that I haven’t the faintest no- 
tion in the wide, wide world where you are; but that I’m 
now out searching for you, like one hunting for a needle 
in a haystack, as the fellow says. She wants you, and 
wants you bad. When you were there a day or two ago, 
perfectly incog., happy to say, with your false mustache 
and powdered hair, I say )^ou saw things there then, and 
they are just about as near the same yet as they can be — no 
upheavals, nothing new.” 

“Yes,” downward inflection. “Where is Dean Mc- 
Barron ?” 

“Now you’ve got me up in the air guessing. She’s a 
mummy on Dean, — don’t know, or else does know where 
he is. She never speaks of him no more than the dead. 
She won’t express a syllable, not even a breath, not a sin- 
gle word about him. But he’s prowling round some’ers 
in the west, I think, from the best I can get from her con- 
versation, that says nothing — nothing at all.” 

“Blank, blank you and all of them combined. You 
do nothing, but bleed me. You are paid to do nothing. 
And I’m the fool paymaster. I want Dean, and I want 
at the present writing, to keep out of her way entirely. 
I don’t want to see her at all ; I don’t want her to know 
where I am, — in the grave, tell her.” 

“You don’t pay me my worth, I can plainly tell you, 
Earl. No you don’t — don’t come any nearer, I tell you. 
Listen, I say. I got the diamonds — ” 

“Where — where — where — where?” crying in anything 
but blase emphasis. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


165 


“You read in the papers?” 

“I did.” 

“She, the owner of the pelf, got me, but I got away by a 
bold dash for liberty. Then I hung round there all day, 
the only safe place, gave the police a chance, congratulated 
her on her bold capture of the thief, sorry he got away, 
and all that, you know, — ” 

“What of the diamonds, blank, blank you.” 

“I’m coming up to that after a while, by and by, I say.” 

“Don’t be so blank slow — worse than a stiff-kneed old 
freight train.” 

“When the cops picked me up from behind the sofa, you 
see, it wasn’t high-skilled policy to be found in too inti- 
mate company with so valuable jewel case, so I prudently 
considered it the better part of valor and discretion to con- 
ceal it under the sofa. And I know nothing more about 
the valuables than what the papers said. And all this I 
did at your planning and pay, when you were down there 
incog, and looked over the field and required me to test 
my skill as an amateur cracksman, as a Raffles. You, you 
know, planned the whole shootin’ match, and I took the 
part of the cat’s-paw, playing the star or leading role. I 
risked mightily, I say mightily, getting myself in hock, — 
risked my liberty, and that’s worth more than all money. 
And I tell you I’m risking it every hour yet. It was not 
for money; it was to accommodate you. You need cash 
you say, — so do I, — and I was willing to help you, — will- 
ing to do anything for you — .” 

“Except actually do it. But you really tried in this 
case to do me a favor, I understand, and failed. The pity 
is that you failed. When I get Miss Wadsworth’s un- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


1 66 

limited purse in my hands, I shall not be ungrateful to 
you; mark this — not ungrateful.” 

“I am yours to pulverize, do with me as you please, heap 
mud on me, bury me — and all the rest — ” 

“Your excellence, Mith, is in your wind.” 

“Where it ought to be.” 

“No, in your heart.” 

“I’ve got no heart.” 

“True. I forgot.” 

They “chinked” glasses again. It was evident for the 
first time that Nero Pensive was imbibing a little too 
freely of John Barleycorn, and that he w T as going down 
into the stadium of infamy to wrestle with a villain w T ho 
was never yet vanquished. Social ethics, in looking into 
the economy of vice, finds no good in dram-drinking, in 
tippling, in inebriety. 

“Is the Professor there?” Nero inquired w r ith the air 
of one who has just thought of it. 

“Yes — there; as large as life and twice as natural. He’s 
not like other men yet, — will be if you give him time. And 
he’s dangling idly after Miss Wadsworth. And I believe 
Miss Alice Moore-Greenfield, one of the latest arrivals, is 
casting her castor into the ring after the Professor, w^ho is 
for the moment most popular there with the ladies. Miss 
Alice’s sunburst smile is very fetching, you see.” 

“Who is she?” His eyes intensified, and he looked 
squarely and deeply into Mith’s eyes. 

“She’s a new arrival from this town, and she’s a daisy, 
I can tell you, a regular peach, a beaut, rich and — ” 

“A thing of beauty and a joy for ever, eh?” 

“Now you’re talking. She wears sunburst-colored silks, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


167 


a sunburst smile, and nothing stale about her; no sterile 
love there, nor a mere excuse for love made out of shredded 
wheat biscuits, and other like thin Advent diet. She’s got 
a finished look, as the carpenter’s would say. And I’d like 
to call her Miss Olive Oil, or Spermaceti, or something 
that way, — she’s so smooth and slick in nature, and the 
name should correspond, I say, you know.” 

“You’re dead gone, eh, Mith? Yes, to be sure. That 
Prof., as they call him, will this Alice girl win out on him, 
think you?” 

“Nah. He looks too boyish to look smart, though he’s 
a man of really distinguished sense. Besides, they are all 
young there, — and proud of themselves. Now, I say, down 
there at Atlantic City mere money doesn’t make all the so- 
cial distinction, but brains, mere brains, cut a slight figger, 
just a very slight figger, — if they aren’t cut bias. Brains, 
tact, and real hospitality count something for real swell- 
dom. Now, at the height of the season there, one can’t find 
rest for eye, ear, or mind. Colored lights illumine the streets 
when the sun is down, and flowers blaze by day; and car- 
riages dash everlastingly here and there, and motors chug, 
and vehicles rumble and ramble, and bands of music fill 
the air with sweet winds, and the sea roars lashed by 
the wind ; and in the smart tea rooms there is also noise 
and music and bustle and buz, and the waiters wear pic- 
turesque waistcoats, and little pages are dressed in livery, 
and gay voices pierce shrilly through the enveloping sound 
of music, and the odor of hot tea and cooked things min- 
gles with the aroma of flowers and the perfume of female 
gowns ; and how pretty it all is — color, noise, music, scent, 
people, motion, light, and all that go to make up a scene 


1 68 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


that can’t be named in this world or the next with human 
language.” 

“You’ve caught on, down there, Mith.” 

“I don’t deny the soft impeachment.” 

“You talk like a novelist.” 

“I’m taking this all in for a story some day, I don’t 
mind telling you.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


M ISS I. Single was called away sud- 
denly this morning by telegram,” 
said Miss Alice Moore-Greenfield, 
as she stood in the whimsical 
breeze on the beach, to Mina 
Wadsworth and Prof. P. Thomas Nelson. She looked 
riotously joyous and lovely, as the soothing wind bathed 
her cheeks in fervent caresses and tossed her skirts in 
freakish delight. 

Mina was the truest ideal of the most blessed type of 
femininity on earth, and the two girls, in splendid youth 
and health, seemed to be a divine poem in material expres- 
sion, and something beyond the power of a Pygmalion 
to sculpture. In the presence of such rare human love- 
liness Prof. P. Thomas Nelson fairly lifted his heart in 
gratitude to God for such splendid gifts to man and in 
faithful reverence of it. And the Professor was any- 
thing but easy, simple-minded. 

“Any bad news take her there?” asked Mina, simply 
to obtain her motive for going. 

“A matter of business, I believe,” said Alice. But 
Mina thought she detected a note of evasion in the re- 
sponse. 

“Not be absent long, I hope?” asked Mina. 

“Not long she hopes.” 

Nothing more was said upon the subject. A pause en- 
169 


170 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


sued. The Professor was looking seaward, as he often 
does, and likens its vastness to the vastness of eternity — 
boundless, so far as finite eye can see. 

“What dream, may I ask, Professor Nelson?” Mina 
ventured more as a suggestion than as a query. The in- 
terim in the conversation seemed to be heavy and dull. 

“Dream! O, I never dream — I always dream — I 
merely think; and thought is intangible, insensible, and 
expressed bears no sort of semblance of significance to the 
auditor that it bears to him who is thinking — dreaming — 
performing that natural function of mind that gener- 
ates thoughts. So no one’s dream — and life too, for that 
matter — is to another what it is to himself.” He hesi- 
tated, fearing he had said too much that was too ab- 
strusely ontological to be accepted in a chatty, windy, 
rambling conversation that is best when it is mere airy 
nothings. 

“Pray, proceed,” said Alice, manifesting an interest he 
was not prepared to see. 

“The dream! O, it was not all a dream. No one’s 
thoughts are. What was in my mind was tossing up like 
waves, and was to the effect that one who misses God 
in his life has lost his life, has made of no significance the 
purpose in his creation. He is a human derelict. That 
was what the waves tossed up in my mind in the last min- 
ute or two.” 

“Do you think God knows all things whatsoever?” 
asked Alice, her black eyes seemingly fawning the Pro- 
fessor into a yielding mind that is easily led by the cap- 
tor. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


171 


“There is no difficulty in believing so natural a thing 
as that, if God is all-wise and all-present.” 

“I stumble,” said Mina meekly, reverently, “at the 
idea that there may be shadows of the grave in heaven ; 
that there may be there memory of sorrows here.” 

“You have no reference to human fellowship with the 
dead, such as spiritualists dream is a reality?” asked the 
Professor. 

“No.” 

With a youthful impluse Alice flirted herself round 
and as she did so said almost wholly irrelevant to the 
topic : 

“What is you opinion of canned sermons?” 

“A phonograph discourse is no sort of match for the 
enthusiasm that makes words have new meaning and 
force,” said the Professor, like a Professor would say it. 
“It is enthusiasm, all know, that makes anything — makes 
everything go. It’s the incense of the thurible.” 

Clever Hesperus had been accurately measuring his 
steps in the direction of this group of three for some mo- 
ments. When he came up the conversation veered, as a 
weathervane in the wind. And no one seemed to be con- 
cerned sufficiently to care for the interruption, — an inter- 
ruption neither welcome nor unwelcome. 

“I was just telling that Miss I. Single was called away 
by a telegram relating to some business matter — some- 
thing, of course, to do with the bureau of the stage or 
some troupe,” said Alice mimicking Clever Hesperus’ 
precision, though not his manner. 

“Ah ! Indeed ! That removes an energy for pleasant 
existence from our midst,” said the exact fellow, a little 


172 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


crestfallen, or at least manifesting slightly a sense of 
smothered disappointment. Most people’s mouths turn 
down at the corners. 

“Very sorry, indeed, for your sake, to have her go,” 
said the irrepressible, impressionable Alice, smiling be- 
hind the scenes at the fellow’s stupid simplicity and shock- 
ing innocence. She resumed: “But, my dear fellow, 
cheer up — keep smiling, and be glad, and look up, for 
you still have yourself to keep you company.” 

“O, as for me, I beg you to believe me quite sincere, 
I shall survive; but as for the rest of you — ” he returned, 
perfectly conscious of her undeveloped, unexpressed laugh. 

“In these modern days of female suffrage, women’s 
clubs and talkfests, and multitudinous social functions.” 
said Mina looking over Alice’s head at nothing, seeking 
to avoid the disagreeable, “women have begun to lay 
claims to duties and rights that if assumed will be very 
grave burdens, from which they are now free.” 

“We should be glad to escape the new obligations and 
burdens, rather than warring in shameful publicity for 
extra ones upon her already heavy-burdened shoulders,” 
and no one knew whether Alice was serious in this view 
or not. 

“The ladies have always been waited on by men, and 
treated with chivalric and heroic politeness, till they 
have come at length to expect or require preferment and 
chivalric treatment after marriage. There is the mis- 
take,” said Clever Hesperus with some force of expres- 
sion. 

“Don’t they deserve it — yet?” asked Alice perhaps a 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


173 


little querulously hasty. The Professor looked inter- 
ested. 

“I shall not, I beg you to understand me, lay one straw 
in the way of her elevation. By all means, I want to 
say plainly, let her become great, supreme, in power and 
loveliness,” said Clever Hesperus a little discomfited. 

“O, we are not exceedingly proud of our grandmother 
Eve,” remarked Alice, “but still, gentlemen, we are 
brothers and sisters, you know.” 

“Our knowledge of women,” said the Professor mov- 
ing to the other side of the group, “is about as intimate 
and reliable as is our own knowledge of her dress when 
we speak of it as ‘cut bias’ and think we know all about 
it. But I do think, speaking broadly, that American 
women are more discontented than the women of other 
lands. Now, I’m not criticising, nor inviting opposition, 
nor hazarding a reason for the faith that is in me, but it 
seems to be a veritable truth.” 

“Perhaps it is her educated and independent tongue,” 
suggested Alice. 

“And if we go to the bottom of her tongue we find a 
condition that rules the tongue,” said Prof. P. Thomas 
Nelson. 

“Correct, — if I may use a current and therefore much 
abused word,” said Clever Hespers, in solemn impeach- 
ment of his mathematical self. 

“A feminine mask, I should say, may conceal her 
‘nerves’ and rasped feelings,” said Alice glibly with a 
cheery smile that seemed to radiate from her heart. “And, 
don’t you know, amidst all her face may be as sweet as 
honey-dew on a meadow lily. But in spite of it all, all 


174 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


women have frolicksome tongues, and possess a cunning 
power of making themselves very disagreeable.” 

“Many homes are loveless,” said Clever Hesperus look- 
ing around with an expression beseeching approval, “and 
chiefly because neither husband or wife possesses the neces- 
sary tact of managing each other according to their na- 
tures.” 

“To be sure,” said Alice. “When a husband sits as 
censor and sponsor for a wife’s conversation and manners 
and dress, he is very properly lightly esteemed.” 

“And when a man’s wife is his meanest enemy, he is not 
to be envied, I should say,” put in Clever Hesperus, pick- 
ing up a pebble, looking it over, and throwing it away. “A 
wife that never offers her husband a caress or a kiss is not 
a model wife. I know, and could cite it, a match of con- 
venience that never asks a favor of each other. Because 
they know it will be haughtily refused. And their domes- 
tic life demonstrates the fact that there are marriages that 
are not mated. They are so prejudiced and set against 
each other that neither can do anything right. Whatever 
one proposes the other is sure to oppose. No reason is re- 
quired for the opposition, — they simply want to, and that 
controls. Perhaps that is a sufficient reason, I shall not 
say.” 

These expressions revealed a more intimate knowledge 
of marital relations and domestic infelicities than he had 
been credited with. 

The quartette slowly moved on, laughing, mingling ir- 
regularly, and delivering the raillery of light, fluffy noth- 
ings in chirping tones. As they strolled along, regardless 
of sunlight, breeze, or place, a motor car was seen passing 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


i75 


in the distance. It doubled a corner out of sight in a trice. 
However, Alice saw, as she thought, Ron Cornwallis. 

“Gracious!” she exclaimed in alarm. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Mina half in pure sympathy 
and half in curiosity. 

“I forgot something.” It was an ingenuous and ingen- 
ious evasion. She manifested uneasiness. “I must beg to 
leave you, though with regret. I’ve enjoyed the conversa- 
tion more than the stroll,” she continued, though all saw 
plainly that the light had gone out of her countenance and 
that something real was the cause. 

Alice had reached the veranda of the cottage, when the 
same motor car she had seen before came flying up and 
paused. Her chaperone was also on the veranda. It was 
the cottage that Miss I. Single had leased and had offered 
Alice for the benefit of her lively, golden animation. Neith- 
er had the mental make-up that delights in that existence 
depicted by the old adage: “Never less alone than when 
alone.” And so they had found pleasure together. It was 
not precisely because they cherished so little of their past 
lives, — not worth it, — but because they detested solitude. 

When the auto-car halted, through some sort of tele- 
pathic manner, it flashed upon Alice that the car, a power- 
ful one, was for the purpose of kidnapping her. She con- 
soled herself with the thought that forewarned is fore- 
armed, and hence she would be a wide-awake sentinel 
against every move, against every wile, against every line 
of approach, against every assault. 

Yes, indeed, it was Ron Cornwallis. But the “other 
fellow” she had no recollection of having ever seen before. 
He was stout, beetle-browed, lowering-eyed, and behind 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


176 

his apparently mirror-made smile, or what was meant for 
one, he concealed a capability able for any diablery. 

“Indeed, I’m happy to meet you here,” said Mr. Ron 
Cornwallis with profound suavity and a well-ordered bow, 
after he had leaped from the motor-car and approached 
within distance of respectful conversation. The man had 
captivating manners, and a style very flattering to women. 
It was not easy or profitable to resist his dogged persistence 
in politeness. The man really possessed a secret esteem of 
himself for his skillful duplicity. 

“Don’t leave me,” Alice said in undertone to her trusty 
chaperone. The quick-grasping chaperone caught the note 
of alarm, and pricked up her ears for something out of the 
daily rut. She paused in the midst of things and stood 
like a statue. 

“Do you expect me to believe that?” asked Alice with 
the first hasty, inconsiderate flash of response that came to 
her. “And yet I may flatter myself that you are pleased 
to see me. I’ve no special reason to doubt it.” 

“I’ve never given you reason to doubt it,” he said in 
mildly beseeching tone, approaching the veranda and 
looking up at her, a dubious flicker in his gray eyes. 

“You’ve given me good occasion for a lark, I acknowl- 
edge, and that is all that was ever meant. That is over 
and I am done with you for all time to come. You set 
my teeth on edge, as it were. Your words and manners 
are too studied, too cut and dried, for my style of life.” 

“Your cruel words, my love, cut into the very core of 
my being.” 

“You speak to vain ears. Not a syllable you say but is 
idle and worthless, — to me.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


177 


“I’ve been fairly distracted since you left me in such 
fanciful, forceful way, and now, pray believe me, I’m truly 
glad, truly glad Eve found you.” He now stepped upon 
the veranda. The “other fellow” had made a circuit of 
the “auto,” as if inspecting it, and was now approaching 
the veranda in an idle manner. 

“Richard the Third and Ann, eh?” she sneered. 

“O, my dear girl, you so cruelly misjudge me. Pray — ” 

“I prefer not to invite you in at present, for good and 
sufficient reasons, and I beg you will not invite yourself in 
and force an unwelcome presence, as you know, upon me. 
If you are a gentleman, as you profess by deportment you 
are, you will respect my wish.” 

He was guilty of an ugly frown at this. It was not a 
distorted adumbration of the soul beneath, not a face 
graced with reason and intelligence, to be sure, but dis- 
torted with hate the result of opposition to him. And, too, 
he saw for the first time the cool, prudent chaperone, and 
he comprehended why the girl had such an air of quietude 
and self-command. 

“I simply beg a word alone with you, Miss Alice. You 
can’t object.” 

“Say what you have to say here, and say it short, and 
maintain your distance.” 

“O, cruel woman! I beseech you not to mortify me 
more. This woman need not — ” 

“She knows all, and she is my friend.” 

After a pause, at a respectful distance, waiting the 
nearer approach of the “other fellow.” he said in most af- 
fected sentimental tone : 

“O, there was a good girl, Evangeline! She comforted 


178 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


her Gabriel, when for aught she knew then they were 
parting forever. You are my Evangeline, my peace, my 
life.” 

“That’s very fetching,” she remarked in a very sneer- 
ing manner. 

“O, that I might convince you!” 

“You have.” 

“If you would but see!” stepping nearer and lifting a 
hand appealingly. She stepped backward nearer her chap- 
erone, Mrs. Belle Revere. 

“It would but be a reduplication of the winning of Ann 
by Richard III, and that play, you know is played out.” 

“Some things never grow old, and the best is love, — 
it never is decrepit, it never is untimely, it never is in the 
role of hoary eld. You will see this sometime.” 

“I at present have no concern about that. I know you 
have no more genuine love for me than I have for you, — 
can’t have; and I have none for you. You know how much 
you really have for me, and you know I know how much 
you have. There’s no deception there, and no love lost.” 

“What did you marry me for?” 

“Not for love or money, I assure you, if you need assur- 
ance. And you might as well end your pursuit of me 
before I hand you over to the red-eyed law and its low 
functions.” 

“O, I do not fear the law,” he said meekly suppressing 
all bravado. 

“I request you now to go away from here, and do not 
loiter expecting to kidnap me. I’m not running a bluff on 
you. You see I’m next to you.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


179 


“May I see you at another time soon, when you are 
at your normal self?” 

“I have no desire to see you again. And understand, a 
man may not kidnap his wife.” 

“Then will you at least bid me farewell, and clasp my 
hand in token that you forgive me, before I go away never 
to see you again or afflict you.” He moved toward her. 
She put up her hand and cried sharply: 

“Stay! Do not come nearer!” 

He sprang forward and caught her. His accomplice 
ran up quickly. The chaperon, Mrs. Belle Revere, a ma- 
tronly lady of nerve and decision, seized a broom and ran 
toward Ron Cornwallis. But the pal intercepted her. 
Alice turned with a fury partaking of madness, in her eyes 
a fire of the kind that marks eras in life histories some- 
times, a muscular power that she did not ordinarily mani- 
fest, and put her hands in his face in tiger-like assault. She 
clawed, and scratched, and pushed, and blinded him fairly. 
He lifted her and strove to carry her off the veranda. 
The accessory wrenched the broom from Mrs. Belle 
Revere, not without a struggle. The scuffle and scraping 
upon the floor with the floundering of feet was all the 
sound they made. But the fellow was of course her 
physical superior, and after a twist and turn he possessed 
the broom. She jumped at him as if she would claw his 
eyes out. But the valiant little lady’s efforts were all 
in vain. She could not even detain him from following 
closely after his partner who was bearing Alice aw r ay. 
The whole affair was quiet and did not exceed a min- 
ute’s duration. The two desperadoes were victorious. 
They were bearing away their victim. 

12 


i8o 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


But Alice was madly raking his face with her nails, 
and it is certain she left some furrows as traces of her 
fury. After all her caution! Outwitted, taken! His 
very arms burnt into her being. His success provoked 
her most desperate feeling. What could she do that she 
had not done! What could it all mean? If she had but 
a stiletto she could plunge it into his black heart! He 
must never put her into the auto-car. The other man 
now also seized her writhing body, and assisted the cap- 
tor to carry her off. 

Then Alice shrieked. The sharp cry pierced. 

“None of that!” commanded Ron Cornwallis. “Stuff 
a handkerchief in her mouth.” 

The obedient pal tried to comply, but she rolled her 
head so that he could not fill her mouth. He caught her 
hair and wfith the other hand tried to force the dirty 
balled handkerchief into her face. She clenched her 
teeth. 

Then Mrs. Belle Revere ran up and hurled a small 
pot of flowers at Ron Cornwallis. The missle hit no 
one, fell beyond, and broke into many pieces. Then she 
lifted her voice. The scream echoed and died away. 
Again she screamed, more lustily than before. The as- 
sistant kidnapper almost fell off the veranda in his haste 
to get Alice away. Both men stumbled down the brief 
steps, and almost dropped their burden. Ron Cornwallis 
now dragged her along. The other man ran at Mrs. 
Belle Revere, intending to deal her a blow with his 
fist that would put a quietus upon her signaling screams. 
He caught a glimpse of a policeman starting out of the 
shrubbery toward the rear of the house. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


181 


As he leaped off the veranda he cried aloud : 

“Police!” 

He fled past Ron Cornwallis. And now he dropped 
Alice and ran after. Both sprang into the motor-car, 
and were gone before the patrolman quite apprehended 
the situation. 

Alice struggled to her feet. The shock was weaken- 
ing. She could stand but with effort. Mrs. Revere 
was at her side giving support, and encouraging with her 
presence. No, Alice did not yield to her emotions and 
fall into insensibility. It concerned her more to be wide 
awake then. Mrs. Revere assisted her back to the ver- 
anda, and sat down by her side. After a moment Alice 
explained briefly to the policeman, and Mrs. Belle Re- 
vere supplemented the explanation with an account of 
her part in the short, sharp contest. Both women were 
suffering from the shock and the fury of the struggle. 
Both had exhibited remarkable courage and composure, 
though the fright and stress were most intense. The 
thought of how near the villians had succeeded in carry- 
ing Alice away, and the consciousness of a terrible fight, 
had a depressing effect; but on the other hand the fact 
that they failed after all was an encouraging thing and 
lifted them out of the “Slough of Despond.” 

“To think that my telepathic warning was practically 
valueless!” said Alice arising and pacing the veranda 
impatiently. 

“But they failed,” said the plucky Mrs. Revere. 

“The color of the policeman’s coat saved us, and 
nothing else,” said Alice. 

The policeman “phoned” in to the central station, and 


182 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


there they all “got busy.” But the men of the mace and 
the badge failed ignobly to “bag the game.” The auto- 
machine carried them out of town and away, before the 
majesty of the law got its running boots on. 

An hour later Alice went to the Wadsworth cottage, 
and she narrated the incident to Mina with graphic 
distinctness and emotional force. The heinouness of the 
attempted kidnapping she portrayed in nervous language 
and impressive colors laid on thick. 

Mina was really alarmed that any one, in free and 
civilized America, should dare to commit such a crime, 
and in the glare of noonday light at that. She could 
not find words sufficiently condemnatory to keep pace 
with the fury of her mind and heart, and so she fairly 
stammered her feelings in emotional ejaculations. Her 
vocabulary of strong terms was not large. 

In the explanation of the motives of the attempted kid- 
napping, Alice frankly confessed her elopement with and 
marriage to the man, and made plain her desertion of him 
on the door-sill of the civil magistrate who performed 
the legal marriage ceremony. Her strange, very strange 
romance, a caper that no sane, self-respecting young lady 
will be guilty of, was abnormal, astonishing — alarming. 
Mina confessed her stupidity to comprehend the emotions 
that should impel anyone to commit a thing so unwar- 
ranted, so irregular, so demoralizing. 


CHAPTER XIX 


T HE necessities of politics took Ex-Senator 
Wadsworth suddenly to Washington City 
again. This visit necessitated the attend- 
ance there also of Prof. P. Thomas Nelson. 
And the outcome of this was the going also 
of Mina and Olive Pendell. However, they were to go 
there a few days later to attend the function of Mrs. Lena 
Spillman. The others deplored their loneliness that would 
ensue at Atlantic City. Peter Wilkins allowed their re- 
maining behind was like one at a bountiful feast with no 
teeth. 

Mith Gulliver was, as he fondly averred, in “hot pursuit 
of Miss I. Single, and would locate her as soon as he ob- 
tained a definite clew, w T hich he hoped to obtain without 
further delay.” He declared [but do not believe him, my 
reader] that Miss I. Single, or Clarissa Harlow, had gone 
to New York, where Dean McBarron met her by appoint- 
ment. He said she wished to know how he was passing 
the idle, empty days, and whether Dean was “keeping 
posted” on the movements of the several personages in this 
drama. 

Alice Moore-Greenfield and Peter Wilkins and Clever 
Hesperus formed no very fortunate combination of mental 
and emotional entities, and so time dragged along slowly, 
heavily, with no bow of cheeriness and buoyancy in it. 
And there was no certainty as to the length of time this 
chimerical association would continue. 

183 


184 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


On the train to Washington, Ex-Senator Wadsworth 
said to Prof. Nelson, that as he understood it the Professor 
would be sent to England to study the social conditions 
and the sentiment among the commonalty. 

“While there, Professor, you may meet King Edward 
and Queen Alexandra,” suggested the Ex-Senator. They 
were skimming over the land in the “flyer.” 

“I should esteem that a very great pleasure, I assure 
you,” returned the Professor enthusiastically. 

“I understood the Queen is not happy,” said Mina in a 
sort of inquiring tone. 

“Once a roue always a roue,” said the ex-Senator. “And 
the first roue of Europe’s old paths, traveled at a swift gait 
when young as Prince of Wales, still appeal to him, and 
will to the last. So he neglects his Queen — never did 
care for her for that matter, — lured on by his love of pleas- 
ure, the ‘ruling passion,’ and with a blunted sense of the 
proprieties, or a total disregard of them, the Queen enters 
little into his life and less into his thoughts. So the Queen 
is embittered, discontented, irritable, and growing deafer 
every day. I speak by the card, to be sure. In his declin- 
ing years the King is going back in memories to his early 
life, and so is traveling much on the continent and revisit- 
ing old places. The Queen is no longer the youngest old 
lady of Europe, and her sharp tongue has become a terror 
in her husband’s palaces.” 

“How old is she, Mr. Wadsworth?” inquired Olive 
Pendell, the inquiry in this case as to a woman’s age being 
entirely fair. 

“She is past her sixty-third milestone in the journey of 
life, and she looks old despite the feminine aids to youth 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


185 


applied in the toilet. She kills her idle time by charity 
measures and attending plays. Her daughter, Princess 
Victoria, is forty years old, and husbandless.” 

“Is she not a Norwegian?” asked Olive seeking more 
certain information. 

“Yes. She has had to put up with much since she mar- 
ried this luxury-spoilt man, and her trials are known by 
all England, and she is pitied.” 

“I have had speech with her Majesty,” said Mina, “and 
I took her to be a lovable, disappointed, sad woman, con- 
scious that her life has been broken, that it has not been 
rounded out full as the promises of her beautiful, fresh 
young life warranted and held out to her as some- 
thing more than a bare possibility. Her dream of life was 
illusive.” 

“Marriage wrecks many lives,” observed the Professor 
looking straight down his nose, conscience smitten. If the 
remark was true, it might be uncharitable and impolitic. 

“That savors of the type of thought of the Mere Man,” 
returned Mina, bordering the controversial attitude, 
though visibly careful in selection of words to convey her 
idea. 

“Wrecks more female than male lives,” added the Pro- 
fessor as an after thought. 

“I agree with you,” assented Olive. “There are very 
many love dramas in real life.” 

“May I tell a story briefly that fell under my limited 
mental survey?” said the Ex-Senator, leaning back in his 
seat idly for a moment. The man was too physically en- 
ergetic to retain one bodily position long without altering 
it. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


1 86 

All urged him to go on. 

“It is a singular, if not remarkable case,” he resumed. 
“She married him, more because he was so persistent and 
so profuse in his gilt-edge love language than because she 
thought him the ideal, the only man on earth. The silver 
tongue of a legislator of our Old Dominion uttered a 
speech that won this married woman’s unbounded admira- 
tion. He was the only — only man, and her husband, who 
was ever but secondary in her thoughts and heart, she still 
esteemed but no longer pretended to love even in a farcical 
way. So she took the silver-tonged legislator’s photograph 
and presented her case undisguisedly to her husband. His 
name was Jason Redman. She pleaded for a divorce. Mr. 
Redman was astonished at her whim. In truth he was 
more than that, he was shocked and heartbroken. To find 
where he stood in the affections of the dearest, sweetest 
woman on earth for him. But he was wise enough to 
measure up the case in its fullness and ramifications, and 
considered it sheer folly to continue longer in this unnatur- 
al and unholy alliance with her. So he granted her a 
divorce and gave her also half his estate, and nobler still 
his departing blessing with tears. ‘With all her faults he 
loved her still.’ Then the silver-tongued legislator, Vester 
Silverman by name, had many crushing scenes with his 
tear-pleading wife, and finally put her away on an untruth- 
ful charge. This fact, if I may pause long enough to say 
it, demonstrates which of the two men is the better. And 
we disagree in toto with Mrs. Redman’s judgment. Mrs. 
Silverman found letters in her husband’s coat-pocket from 
Mrs. Jason Redman, and then the chagrin and poignancy 
of her situation became pathetic and crushing. Mrs. Red- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


187 


man declared she loved Silverman because of his charming 
speech before the legislature. She had never seen him, 
but the reading of the speech enmeshed her heart. Others 
failed to see the peculiar sweetness and fitness of his oratori- 
cal effort. And it was highly probable he would never 
again rise to this first high-water mark in her estimation. 
Therefore it seemed that both were uniting themselves to 
disappointment and an unhappy destiny. Both were hu- 
man creatures still, no better than they were because she 
loved him, and this fact would be disclosed to them sooner 
or later in most unsatisfactory manner. She said she 
loved him at first sight and first sound of his voice. Per- 
haps there were psychological reasons for this, taking it 
for granted that she uttered the truth and had not been 
deceived into trumping up reasons. They married. Were 
they happy? Ask of the winds that far around with frag- 
ments of love strewed the sea. Man never is but to be 
blessed, so the optimist says, and according to the law of 
opposites the pessimist puts the converse, man never is but 
to be cursed. The one is as philosophically true as the 
other. The two divorced people never married, and were 
never again blissfully happy or en rapport with life. Those 
people who set up to housekeeping with only a rocker and 
a broom seem to stand the best chance of encountering hap- 
piness.” 

“I think both divorced people are to be congratulated 
on their freedom from such unequal and unworthy life 
partners,” said Olive Pendell, exhibiting more acuteness 
of observation in her remark than a girl of her age was 
supposed to possess. But not many knew the good, noble 
girl. 


1 88 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


The Professor observed with peculiar sincerity: 

“Want of adaptation, — unequally yoked, — mismated, 
— married but not mated, — emotions mistaken for love.” 
He looked as if he regretted that there is no absolute rule 
for determining congeniality, or mental and emotional 
fitness; in other words, one’s nature-made life partner, 
not the mere family-made or law-made associate. He cited 
a divorce case that was similiar to the one related by the 
ex-Senator, though the setting was different. In his case 
the “phone” and the bath played a prominent part. 

“I’m convinced,” said Mina, who had given her idea 
some consideration, “that the church should not marry 
divorced people who are at fault. The causes are vari- 
ous and fanciful. Too much money induces extravagant 
living, too much epicureanism, too much fine raiment, 
too many fast automobiles, and too many divorces.” 

Both the Professor and Olive looked at Mina either to 
see whether she were laughing or insincere. For her 
family, mainly her father, had almost unlimited acres 
and great overlordship in his commonwealth. Her rela- 
tionships ruled the politics and the business of the state, 
— to such an extent as to merit the common appellation 
applied to their particular section of the state as the 
barony of the Wadsworths. The Davis-Elkins suprem- 
acy in West Virginia was in part the duplicate of the 
Wadsworth sway. The Wadsworths, too, built rail- 
roads, opened mines, developed the forests, made known 
the state’s resources to the world, built public highways 
across the country, and invited capital to localize with 
them. Their confidence in their undertakings won them 
support and encouragement, and they amassed practically 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


189 

unlimited wealth. Wealth is power and commands re- 
spect and position, and so Mr. Wadsworth was honored 
with the United States Senatorship from his state by 
the legislature. He was a wise, diplomatic, long-headed 
man, and rarely made either political or financial mis- 
takes. 

Really most of Mina’s conscious mature life was not 
passed at their country seat, Acadie, but in Washington, 
where her father’s magnificent residence was the open 
house to a wide circle of the best people of the capital. 
But Mina was an out-of-door girl, delighting in games, 
drives, rides, skating, hunting, and other outdoor enter- 
tainments. But she was too level-headed to be hoydenish, 
prudish, outdoorish in tone, and she knew her place, capa- 
bilities, and duties, and like her father, never omitted a 
function belonging to her. She was genuinely a typical 
American girl of typical American beauty, equally a 
favorite within and without doors. A sane country idea 
of life, splendidly cultivated, of some pencil-pushing dis- 
tinction, a great favorite in society, there were no faults 
in her life setting. If one may be blunt, she was re- 
garded as the catch of Washington, and many young men 
— and others not so young — angled for her hand and 
plethoric purse. And now the general gossip of Madam 
Rumor had it that she was going to marry an English 
Earl. And she did not deny it. It was even said that as 
an international marriage, it would be an innovation, ex- 
celling even court splendor of the old-world recherche 
marriages, quite rivaling Alphonso and Ena’s marriage. 
Though, it would be entirely an American marriage. 

When Mina alluded to over-wealth as a popular cause 


190 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


of divorce, as already said the Professor and Olive looked 
at her in the manner of a query. 

“I’m not convinced that it’s wealth,” argued the Pro- 
fessor, “but I’m quite sure it is in the creature before 
wealth gives the easy opportunity for divorce. This seems 
plain to me.” 

“Yes, to be sure it’s in the creature, or wealth couldn’t 
do it,” said the ex-Senator. “Out west, if I may tell a 
tale in four chapters, a romance occurred like this: 
Chapter one is, January, 1907, Mr. Young Man to lace- 
loving Miss Ruffles, a diamond worth three hundred dol- 
lars by express. Chapter two is, May, 1907, return of 
letters to the fair Miss Ruffles. Chapter three is, May, 
1907, returned to Mr. Young Man a package valued at 
fifty dollars, letters. Chapter four is. June, 1907, Mr. 
Young Man married to Lovey Mary, and Miss Ruffles 
married to Elwood Again. Diamond lost in the shuffle. 
How lightly the vinculum matrimonii binds ‘fond hearts 
and fine faces.’ True hearts have been civilized out of 
existence, if we deduce a conclusion from what we daily 
read.” 

The Professor started in : 

“The present neoteric fashion of spending the honey- 
moon on a railway car is not a normal human manner of 
life. Voltaire in his romance of ‘Zadig,’ in the third 
chapter, says that it is written in the book of Zend that 
the first month of marriage is the moon of honey, and the 
second is the moon of wormwood. The application of 
this is that most people marry ignorantly. Too many 
wives allow themselves to become an uncomfortable 
bundle of rasping nerves, and as our friend Peter Wil- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


191 

kins says she then too often starts the mental wheels to 
going that electrocute the hub, — I quote literally.” 

“I’m not a believer in lynchings for base deceivers of 
others’ wives or daughters, nor the crude justice of the 
‘unwritten law,’ nor the appeals to passion for legal re- 
dress, but I do believe in roundly reprobating the affin- 
ity dodge,” said ex-Senator Wadsworth looking blankly 
out of the car window, seeing nothing and desiring to see 
nothing. 

“The Fineas Earl farce shocked most good people at 
the time,” said the Professor. “A plucky Kentucky wife 
walked in upon her husband and his ‘affinity’ and shot the 
‘affinity’ dead, the husband fleeing lest he get too what 
he so richly deserved. The dishonored, disowned wife 
said she had been compelled to kill the ‘affinity’ to pro- 
tect her own home. The jury exonerated the brave wife 
and set her free.” 

“Bravo,” shouted Olive. “This invention of a term, 
‘soul mate,’ which simply covers up a multitude of sins, 
is no sort of exoneration for the dishonorable associa- 
tion.” 

“Modified spiritual polygamy is all such associations 
can be at best,” said Prof. P. Thomas Nelson, casting 
a shrewd eye at Mina, though endeavoring to conceal his 
act. 

“I do not wonder at the loose marriage views held by 
so many nowadays,” began Mina, “when we regard the 
clubs, orders, societies, combinations, organizations, meet- 
ings, and all the outre views on marriage from free love 
and free expression advocates. Then the very foolish peo- 
ple who profess to believe in the ‘absolute foolishness of 


192 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


marriage by law’ stand in almost ribald jest in opposition 
to those who believe marriages are made in heaven. Most 
of these faddish ideas have an organization, and propose to 
do missionary work. Propagating, promoting the foolish- 
ness!” She was very much awake to the idea. 

The conversation touched very many issues of the mar- 
riage and divorce question, and was, in fact, prolonged 
until the whistle anounced the arrival in Washington. 

There they took a cab for the Ebbitt, where they were 
duly deposited. 


CHAPTER XX 


T HE press had made the public familiar with 
the ways and customs of Mrs. Lena Spill- 
man of Washington. She had an extensive 
acquaintance abroad, to be sure, and when 
some foreigner arrives in this country 
she sends a written invitation to him, in most 
correct form to visit her. And a stranger, glad 
to enlarge his circle of acquaintances, he invari- 
ably accepts. And whether he dwells in her home or 
in the legation of his country, he cheerfully responds to 
her invitation to functions. The diplomatic contingent 
naturally are a “swell set” as well as good diners, and they 
go habitually where the best things to eat and drink are 
tendered them. And Mrs. Spillman’s social occasions are 
really a pleasant place to be. The Spillmans made their 
home the arbiter and center of Washington society, with 
the ulterior object of making distinguished matches for 
their attractive and correct daughters. But the game of 
utilizing the diplomatic corps and visiting foreigners for 
their social uplift and prestige is elusive and often a failure. 
And yet the trial is made. 

And Mrs. Spillman is callous to the criticism that she is 
guilty of placing her own daughters in the way of His 
Grace and His Highness, rather than of presenting accord- 
ing to strict good form some lovely belle whom she is 
bound to bid to her feast. And she has been accused by 
193 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


jealous mammas of deliberately and rudely smashing tete- 
a-tetes between her lions and other Washington girls, 
forcing the lions to pay attention to her own daughters. 

She on one occasion omitted or forgot to include the 
name of Miss Minna Wadsworth in the list of her dinner 
guests, because at a previous meeting an Italian duke paid 
more court to her than to her own daughters. And she 
further made special effort to marry Miss Mina to a cer- 
tain American of distinction to remove her out of the way 
of the Italian duke. Mina simply smiled. And Mrs. 
Spillman wined and dined many Washington catches in 
order to have a clear way for her daughters. And she 
at this time pooh-poohed all newspaper rumors that Mina 
was engaged to an English Earl whom the madame was 
seeking for her own daughter. He was her own find and 
she was watchful of him. But happy to say she was not 
discouraged nor cast down because she had found many a 
husband for some other American belle. In Spain once 
she was almost certain for a time that she had captured a 
Due for her fair young daughter Alice. To be perfectly 
candid, these sisters were most charming girls, and while 
they were not “raved over” they were greatly admired and 
even petted by distinguished gentlemen at home and 
abroad, — despite the fact they had a mother! Mrs. Spill- 
man often hurt her daughter’s cause by undesignedly seem- 
ing to be a “scheming, managing mother.” She was am- 
bitious and anxious to lead and to monopolize the social 
functions in Washington and gain eclat thereby. The 
“butterfly counts” who could out-Cupid Cupid, and salaam 
and elusively bow with unrivaled grace, and the splendid 
catches in the embassies were specially in evidence at her 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


195 


great entertainments, but someway they did not propose to 
her daughters. 

As one to assist in receiving at the White House Mrs. 
Spillman rose to the occasion with proper and imposing 
hauteur. The costumer’s art supplemented nature in giv- 
ing her the air of the grande dame, and she sweeps into 
place with the air of Juno and greets even with icy mein 
and condescending dignity, in order to maintain her reso- 
lution to keep society and officialdom at their proper dis- 
tance. Nevertheless, in the presence of her titled guests 
she was cordial, simple, and unaffected to admiration. Her 
ambition seemed to be to create the impression that she 
was to the manor born. 

This mid-summer fest, a sort of expiring social throe 
before the slow-dragging, late summer inactivity consumed 
them, was a final throw of the matrimonial lariat to cap- 
ture Earl Nero Pensive. Mrs. Lena Spillman was not 
aware of the relationship he had acquired with Miss Mina 
Wadsworth, or she might have been forgotten from the 
list of guests again. It is certain, however, that no one in 
Washington knew anything about “his private character.” 
No one seemed to pause to speculate on what such a 
“lord’s” private life must necessarily be. 

Ex-Senator Wadsworth and Mina, accompanied by 
Olive Pendell and Prof. P. Thomas Nelson, on this lovely 
summery, sunny afternoon alighted from the powerful au- 
to-machine at the Spillman’s. Others had arrived earlier. 

They were ushered into a superb dwelling, furnished 
with the best that money and taste could give, and adorned 
with every grace and convenience that wide experience and 
much travel supplied. The reception of them by Mrs, 


13 


ig6 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Lena Spillman [there was a husband somewhere among the 
roses in the background] and her sweet, lovely, blushing, 
young daughters could not have been more correct nor less 
reserved, more formal nor less cold, more magniloquent 
and stilted nor less charming, more correct nor less haugh- 
ty, more dignified nor less stiff, more comme il faut nor less 
welcoming. 

In a little time Earl Nero Pensive arrived, and was 
petted and patted and made much over, without bringing a 
relaxation to the concealed frown in his eyes. But he 
took it all as a matter of course, empty and hollow and 
shallow as it seemed to him, restraining an impulse to re- 
sent the unwarranted familiarity. He understood the situ- 
ation, and was less concerned about Miss Alice Spillman 
than Miss Wadsworth. The dot from the latter had in it 
the element of a probably larger sum than the former. Be- 
sides all this, Mina was a decidedly more lovable and 
lovely girl, and in all ways would be the most acceptable 
capture. With him it was not a matter of sentiment or 
social function ; it was purely a business affair. He was 
not disposing of his title to an upstart American, without 
written and traditional lineage or heraldic honors, for a 
palliative or a plausible possibility. It must be a certainty, 
the clean cold cash, in exchange for the title he should give 
the presumptive petty femme nouveau. Her position or 
sentiments would not be considered. It was simply a prob- 
lem of transferring some good American coin to England 
for his special behoof — nothing more. 

Though Miss Mina Wadsworth had not given him 
definite assurance of her own mind or real attitude toward 
him, yet his self-confidence and reliance upon the magic 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


197 


of a title assured him that with proper time and oppor- 
tunity she must succumb to his wish. He had implicit 
faith in his captivating powers; he was not so certain of 
her capability to defeat his scheme. 

In the conversation they had upon the point of uniting 
her fortune with his title, she had not shown the docility 
and spirit that submits without at least a picturesque 
flourish of opposition, but he had conceived that what she 
did and said was but the outward manifestation of an 
inward state quite the contrary. He noticed, as he 
thought, that her proud, bumptious young Americanism 
was simply performing a “stunt” of untutored gymnas' 
tics, and after the exhibition would readily yield to his 
superior enterprise in insisting upon her thinking in the 
case as he wished her to think. 

After his court of ceremony to all the Spillmans and 
his gratuitous gift of smiles from his limited supply, he 
immediately sought out Miss Mina Wadsworth. He 
remembered that his notice of invitation solemnly in- 
formed him that he would be regarded as her special 
guest, and therefore his chief attentions belonged to the 
Miss Spillmans. At the table he performed all the duties 
perfect form required. 

Mina had forseen that she would meet Nero Pensive 
here, but she could not forsee what would transpire. It 
is really significant, it must be said, that she had re- 
quested Olive not to be absent from her through the 
whole time for a single minute. And the two went about 
like inseparable friends. It is readily comprehended that 
Mina was mistrustful of her impressions and her pos- 


198 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


sible conduct when alone. The Professor was too well- 
bred to neglect his duties as a guest. 

Nero Pensive somehow had the satisfied sense that 
Miss Wadsworth had come to Washington expressly to 
meet him, and this idea kindled him like an inspiration. 
He was in faultless clothes, though at present he was talk- 
ing in magnificent figures, like Colonel Sellers, and deal- 
ing in dimes. But this was his profound secret. His 
smile did not rub off during the whole evening. 

Miss Mina Wadsworth put forth no effort to out- 
shine the company present. Her gown was superbly rich 
but inconspicuous. The diamonds she wore were the 
very ones the robber had captured in their Atlantic City 
cottage, and Nero Pensive had well-grounded suspicions 
of this fact. She was in splendid mental dress also, and 
as bright and ready to respond in speech and laughter as 
she ever was in her life, — but not in the light frivolous 
sense of the up-to-date girl. 

They met and bowed. His unimpeachable smile 
greeted her, she thought, as if he were conferring a favor 
on her and not a gallantry. She had met him first in 
Paris. He had followed her and her father to London. 
His stay in their country home, Acadie, was a protracted 
hope rather than pleasure. It was scarcely a hope; it was 
a method for pelf. She expected nothing from him, and 
certainly he owed her no peculiar favor or marks of dis- 
tinction. And when she came to think of it she desired 
none. When she paused to catch the elusive emotion that 
was scarcely acute enough to germinate w T ords, she was 
impressed with the fact that his was a strange personality. 
There was something observable but indefinable in him, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


199 


— a note of dissonance somehow, — and she felt it rather 
than saw it. She was peculiarly, if not divinely and sub- 
consciously, sensitive to the non-interpretable impressions 
that others made upon her. Her telepathic sense, con- 
trary to his seeming graces, excellent courtesies, polite 
manners, flattering attentions, elegant but extravagant 
phrases, and smooth, oily words that speak and purpose 
not, whispered an alarming “beware.” Was it a warn- 
ing? No, it was merely an impression, nothing more. It 
was quite too faint a sense to coach into special attention 
and significance. 

Earl Nero Pensive and Mina and Olive had strolled 
out into the garden and were engaged in a triangular 
conversation, much to the chagrin of the Earl who re- 
garded Olive as de trop. The Earl could not think she 
was there by connivance, or that Miss Wadsworth was 
unwilling to hear his venerable message, and so he as- 
sumed that Miss Olive Pendell was blundering to the 
harm of himself and Miss Wadsworth. How was it 
possible for him to be mistaken in supposing that Miss 
Wadsworth had come to this function given in his honor 
except specially to meet him and answer him favorably. 
He could not surmise she was less tractable or less easily 
conquerable than he had fondly believed. In his category 
all women were alike and therefore all were capable of 
being won, — by him. 

“I presume I tell you no cornfield secret, — one not 
given in urban situations, — when I say I am expecting a 
cable message any time, recalling me to my mater patria ” 

His words had the polish of measured consideration. 
Mina noted his phrases, “cornfield secret,” and was sure 


200 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


she knew the impression that gave it birth. America 
was a new land of agriculture and so of vast cornfields; 
while England and Europe were urban lands. It simply 
developed a smile that he did not misinterpret. 

“Sorry to lose the excellence of so entertaining, valu- 
able product of European urbanity,” said Mina in her 
sleeve. “We clodhoppers need the refined influence of 
European perfection.” 

He had not expected the retort so direct. The two 
girls sat down upon a rustic, park-like seat, while he 
stood in indefinite mood before them, feet apart and 
fingers laced together in front. 

“But believe me I’m very particularly charmed with 
this delightful, surprising, strenuous country, and I think 
its women the most superb on earth, not excepting the 
beautiful, world-renowned Circassian maidens.” 

“We echo that sentiment,” said Olive, plying her 
feather fan with more than lanquid energy. 

“But I know there are very lovely women in your na- 
tive land,” said Mina. 

“I know that Stephane Lauzanne, editor of the Paris 
Matin, protests against the saying that America is the 
kingdom of lovely women. To sustain his objection he 
says the master of the house goes down town, transacts 
his business, lunches down town, closes his office at the 
end of the day and enters a club, dines there maybe, and 
goes home to bed. Meanwhile the wife, this Parisian 
scribler asserts, is condemned to pass the morning in a 
long walk, with a look on her face suggestive of a winter 
landscape and an emptiness in her heart suggestive of a 
deserted banquet hail with the lights out. No, he thought 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


201 


America not an ideal place for women.” Earl Nero 
Pensive was inclined to believe the Frenchman, though 
ostensibly denying him. 

“I’d like to know the premises for his remark, the extent 
of his opportunities for observing American life and wo- 
men,” said Mina in a way that had a critical meaning in it. 

“I may assume your wise and critical editor,” said 
Olive, “had no experience with beautiful women in our 
country that he is ashamed to repeat.” 

“That I’m not permitted to know,” said the Earl, per- 
mitting luxurious smiles to decorate his unreadable, illegi- 
ble countenance for a brief instant. 

“I think, perhaps, Monsieur Lauzanne spoke hastily,” 
said Mina listlessly, perfunctorily. 

“By a voluminous correspondence in the Matin,” said 
the Earl, altering his position of body, “it was decided in 
the affirmative that love, in the progress of the times, has 
reached a crisis. French men and women, it was thought, 
fall in love less fondly and deeply than formerly, and the 
grand passion is altogether out of fashion.” 

“You say the French have so decided?” asked Mina, an 
ulterior suggestion underlying her inquiry. She turned 
in her seat and looked aimlessly at Olive. Olive’s eyes 
were on the ground. 

“Yes, a French view.” He resumed : “They say unions 
of the sexes, temporary or permanent, are but questions of 
material interest only. Sentiment is banished, even in 
your novel country in some degree at least, and Mrs. Bur* 
nett’s novel, ‘The Shuttle’, clearly demonstrates it is ban- 
ished in my country. To be sure this is American testi- 
mony. I do not impeach it, but it is not sufficient to my 


202 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


mind, an English mind, you understand. However, this 
seems to be true, at all events, that the average girl will 
not marry these days, unless the young man’s position in 
the world is entirely made, — a period in life when the hair 
is gray or gone and youth a thing of the past.” 

At this instant Mrs. Spillman, feeling the necessity of 
ubiquity, came flaming up, laughing, and saying in a pre- 
tended jest: 

“Your absence has been remarked.” She was exceed- 
ingly rejoiced to find Olive a fine third present. 

“We had not meant to be impolite, or afflict others by 
our absence,” said the Earl benignly sarcastic. 

“My dear Earl, may I relieve the rest of the company 
by escorting you back and show it that its fears were base- 
less?” said Mrs. Spillman with suave indifference mani- 
fested toward Mina. 

“Certainly,” meekly, eyes down. 

“And you, girls, come upon my other hand and we will 
all go together, the happiest quartette of all present.” She 
dared do no less. But the reproof was less apparent. 

They fully comprehended the dear anxious madam’s mo- 
tive. Non-compliance, and that graciously, would have 
been ungenerous if not unkind, and this she knew. It is 
not difficult to understand how such a woman detected 
their absence, and how she found them. The act in bring- 
ing the derelicts back into the throng illustrates the metal 
of the woman. 

And the painful circus [move modish to say comedy ] 
went cheerily on. It might be summed up as a social event 
consisting of dresses, smiles, formal words of no trust- 
worthiness, graceful manners, and bored men and women 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


203 


from many walks in life. The directoire gown was not 
popular as yet at such society gatherings with a motive in 
them, which everybody knows and smiles over in secret. 

Earl Nero Pensive really began to see in Mina a proud 
distinguishing look, a graceful, lovely air about her, a nat- 
ural instinctive independence, a winning bearing, a charm- 
ing tone of voice, a comely walk, a woman exquisitely 
gowned, a smart speech, a native shrewdness, — a woman 
to be proud of anywhere. There was no disguising the 
fact to himself that she was awakening dormant feelings 
in him, feelings resurrected after being as dead as Lazarus 
and buried much longer. He was not proud to discover 
his possibility of being netted by a mere woman, even in 
ever so slight a degree, though he confessed it was a novel 
and perhaps pleasant sensation. And he found himself 
more uncertain about her zeal for him than he was at first, 
and this perplexity annoyed him. His former certainty had 
altered into a debatable proposition with himself, phrasing 
it in the most conservative and agreeable language possible, 
and in the private forum of his stale heart, the unseemly, 
made discussion was waged. 

He remembered when Clarissa Harlow first sang a 
“Sammy song” to him to come and kiss her. He took 
her at her word, scrambled over the footlights, and would 
have kissed her in the presence of the whole audience had 
she not escaped behind the scenes. This was his introduc- 
tion to her. Those were first days, when a “monologue 
artist” could decry the “cheap skate dude,” and foolishly de- 
mand of some one, “don’t look at me in that tone of 
voice.” Then the capacity for enjoyment was fresher and 
life was the richer for its youth. 


204 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Once again restored to the mingling, jangling, pretend- 
ing throng the Earl politely turned his attention to Miss 
Alice and her sister, while a dashing young American was 
“turned loose” on Mina and Olive. 

Long before the Earl had made up his mind that this 
was no place, considering the espionage and assumption of 
the mamma, to “make love,” not of the Romeo-and- Juliet 
kind, but of the enterprising kind that is a successful busi- 
ness venture, a clamorous old clock somewhere “butted in” 
and impudently tolled off the, — “time to go home.” The 
clock had wandered through the day with various inflec- 
tions and successes to different men and women, — depend- 
ent quite on the viewpoint of the human creature. No, the 
Earl did not think of Titus, and should this Roman have 
entered his mind he would have called him a crank and a 
fool. 

As Mina and Olive and the Professor and the Ex-Sen- 
ator departed, Nero said in a confidential aside to Mina: 

“I’m so desperately disappointed. I must see you soon — 
soon.” 

“At your pleasure,” she said and she knew not why. It 
was not what she had decided to say in such an exigency. 
She was half provoked that her evil nature had predomi- 
nated and ruled at the critical moment when she should 
have been the sanest. 

Mrs. Spillman, decidedly at "the wrong place at the right 
moment, dashed out upon these departing guests, wished 
them bon voyage , and smiled a large moon at them as she 
triumphantly led the discomfited Earl back to her daughters. 
They should have his last, final, cordial love-word, she 
hoped and prayed. Why would not the old-world titular 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


205 


gentry offer themselves to her daughters, good as gold, the 
sweetest, best, most beautiful and lovely in all America, 
and make her and them serenely blessed! She was too 
cunning and clever to utter an unflattering word about 
Mina, but as Scott phrased it there was no treason in en- 
joying her thoughts under the shade of her own bonnet. 
Soon the upset Earl bade his hostess and her two lovely 
daughters a quiet, unpromising, non-hopeful, non-sugges- 
tive good-by. The mother was discomfited. She had seen 
no encouraging signs. It passed her powers of reason. 

“Gracious! Another social function performed, and 
nothing in it,” she reflected to herself, though she was di- 
vinely cheery to her daughters. “I’m destined ever to be 
crossed by that Ex-Senator’s daughter. I can’t see why 
she is not satisfied with Peter Wilkins or that other bright 
young American I put in her way to-night. For my life 
I can’t see why she is preferred to my charming, traveled, 
cultured, sweet girls.” 

Her plans had all ended in smoke. 

The Professor was not given to romancing, but this 
Spillman affair had set him to thinking seriously. He la- 
mented for one brief minute: 

“Indecision! O indecision! Thou curse! Indecision, 
inaction, non-execution, shilly-shallying; hence through 
indecision written works are withheld from men and 
their consequent lessons. Accomplished facts and the his- 
tory of things done are men’s monuments.” 

For one thing now he must know. And that before he 
disconnected himself from the shore line of his greatest, 
best country on earth and set foot on a foreign shore. 
It had been determined that he should be the head of a 


206 APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 

commission sent to England to investigate financial meth- 
ods, banking laws and privileges, and the elasticity of the 
commercial medium of exchange, looking toward an in- 
ternational law to regulate bills of exchange. So he had 
come to think that life would be a mere bauble, nay worse, 
a bubble to him, if he and Miss Mina Wadsworth could 
not unite their life interests and forces and travel along 
life’s rugged pathway together. He had written some 
books on serious economic questions and shown a com- 
prehension of the problems considered to such a com- 
manding extent as to win favor with the President and 
the best intellects of the country. 

Earl Nero Pensive was not ignorant of the merits or 
the attractions of Prof. Nelson, but he chose to classify 
him, in an effort to belittle him, with the untitled multi- 
tude. He said that Mr. Nelson was accumulating dol- 
lars selling wind and ink to the public, and yet he secretly 
envied the Professor’s mental superiority and his entry 
into the limited and high rank of scholarly thinkers. In- 
deed, he had no proper comprehension of American man- 
hood and superiority and supremacy, for he based every 
order of men below the titled fraternity. He did not 
know that in the mighty sweep of the ages and the pro- 
gress of the world, the old system of titles was falling 
behind, and would have to pass away in the progress of 
time, as did feudalism, and yield to the newer. 

These two men had never met, until they met at Mrs. 
Spillman’s “swell entertainment,’’ but they were con- 
scious for some time that each had a large material being 
in the world. They knew they were rivals. They nat- 
urally could not be friends. Neither had a special de- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


207 


sire, or motive born out of pure sweetness, to cultivate 
intimately the society of the other. In the first instance 
they were not instinctively congenial. 

And Mina knew not the state of unexpressed feeling 
existing between these rival suitors. Hers was not the 
hammock-novel spirit of love and jealousy, as she did not 
harvest that crop of literary weeds, and consequently she 
was not prepared to imagine that men could have intense 
feelings of revolt toward each other. She was not a 
girl who pined in sentimental foolishness and love 
vagaries about any man, for she was a royal girl of na- 
ture, perfect in health, proper in mental attitudes toward 
the opposite sex, and living because life was a supreme 
happiness and blessing. Prof. Nelson she knew to be 
nature’s nobleman, and Earl Nero Pensive a legal noble- 
man. There was a difference in her mind. It was a 
conceded fact that no man could be as gracious and per- 
fect in manner as was Earl Nero Pensive without possess- 
ing a keen, discriminating, ready mind and power of ap- 
plication. The title bore no weight with her, though the 
Earl inferred it did, and upon that inference he was will- 
ing to base his success of winning her in the end. She 
had to be won by tact and indifference, rather than by 
fulsome flattery and the unction of persistent attention 
and pursuit. He recognized her sturdy sense and splen- 
did attainments. These he put in the credit column, op- 
posite her idiosyncrasies, subtile and faint as they might 
be, which stood upon the debit page. It might be that 
she had a preference for the Earl for some things and for 
the Professor for some other things, more excellent and 
worthy. They might classify her as they listed, that was 


208 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


a mental affair of their own, and settled nothing definitely 
as to her unalterable life essence, and she would not be 
perturbed by it. In fact she had no self-consciousness as 
to where she was placed by others, — she only wished to 
be well thought of by everybody. 

The unlettered simplicity of her feelings, she some- 
times recalled, made life seem less artificial and more di- 
vine. 


CHAPTER XXI 


A S unexpectedly as she departed, Miss I. Sin- 
gle, sobriquet, otherwise Clarissa Harlow, 
returned to Atlantic City, the day after 
her friends had gone to Washington. 
Information from Dean McBarron, to 
the effect that he was not recovering very rapidly from 
his injuries sustained on a windy day in the streets, took 
her to him in Chicago. Moreover, Mith Gulliver had 
intimated to her that it was barely possible Nero Pen- 
sive was there in desperate search for Dean. Of course, 
the reader understands that this deception was for the 
purpose of enticing her there out of Nero Pensive’s way, 
while he should attend Mrs. Spillman’s great fete in 
Washington. It would be, indeed, ugly to be confronted 
by her on such a social occasion. A woman at bay is a 
formidable beast to meet anywhere. Then, too, if Nero 
Pensive was in Chicago seeking Dean McBarron, she 
knew that if they met a duel would probably follow. It 
was a part of her duty to keep them quite separate, for 
disaster to either one would lie at her door, she was well 
aware. Dean had intimated to her that trouble would 
ensue should they meet, — a spicy bit of sensation for the 
newspapers. 

She was again with her new-found friends at Atlantic 
City, a sort of nucleus around which the others cohered. 

209 


210 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


She seemed to inspire verve and purpose in the rest. 
There is always a leader in every flock. Why? — 

Alice Moore-Greenfield and Miss I. Single, accom- 
panied by Peter Wilkins and Clever Hesperus, in a frol- 
icksome humor one evening, strolled into a “theatorium” 
or nickleodeon and laughed excessively at the comic 
motor-pictures. The moving scenes were entertaining, 
and consisted of tricks put upon susceptible grown-ups by 
extraordinary precocious boys, chiefly of the type of the 
yellow kid, a fledgeling of the alley. The gramaphone 
ground out pitiable music. 

“I wonder whether there are in very truth people as 
easy to be imposed on as those represented here,” said 
Clever Hesperus in his marvelously exact manner. He 
would have imagined himself guilty of a capital offense 
and ready for execution had he not been correct accord- 
ing to his idea. 

“Sure — sure!” reiterated Miss I. Single. Clever Hes- 
perus knew not her real name. 

“Yes, quite as dead easy as these in the pictures,” said 
Peter Wilkins, strengthening the general idea of weak 
people easily imposed upon. 

“I found an easy dupe once in New York,” said Alice. 
Miss I. Single looked at her in an aside, which had the ef- 
fect of a cloture upon Parliament. Alice corrected a re- 
calcitrant lock of hair, as if “fixing” herself to make a 
beautiful picture on Mr. Wilkins’ retina. 

“How was that?” Peter urged. 

“I sang him a song and he thought it angelic — poor 
fool!” 

“I’m not so barbaric as to quarrel for the absolute cor- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


211 


rectness of my view when indeed I might be wrong, to be 
sure, as all men are liable to be, all men and women being 
fallible, as we understand it, but I’m inclined to think that 
the fellow was nearer correct about your singing than 
Miss Moore-Greenfield was,” said Clever Hesperus, as 
near the melancholy comedy as it was possible for him 
to be. 

“My, what a roast!” cried Alice, eyes glistening with 
laughter and clapping her little white hands, a large dia- 
mond flashing from her finger. 

“No — no — no! To be angelic — are you not?” stumb- 
ling in the lumber of his intellectual attic for a simile that 
was not to be found. 

“A loyal dalliance around the truth is not the very truth 
itself,” said Alice, a solemn smile decorating the angular 
corners of her face. With erratic impulse she paused and 
swung her right hand into a heroic position. 

“What you doing?” demanded Miss I. Single so rapidly 
as to skip her verbs. 

“Trying something. Don’t you see? Giving emphasis 
to my phrase ‘loyal dalliance’. But don’t you get educated 
about it, and set yourself up by your own authority as a 
most righteous judge to try me for unconventional vaga- 
ries, according to the common law of society.” 

“All — it’s all mere speculative delusion, — -all you’ve 
been saying,” said Peter Wilkins oracularly. 

“My Ne-m^'-sis has always been my misfortune,” said 
Clever Hesperus. Peter Wilkins had long said that in 
the pronunciation of classical names Clever Hesperus “fell 
down.” He pronounced by what he conceived to be logi- 
cal rules of pronunciation, and therefore he was as correct 


14 


212 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


as a dictionary and need not verify his accents and sounds, 
he thought. He always pronounced Ar-is-to -phanes, A- 
m-ti-des, I-cv7-rus, and even Mon-ta^-ue. He had read 
some of the last century novelists, little science, little his- 
tory, and little political economy, although he had absorbed 
some trifles of these matters of great human interest in 
no very accurate manner. It must be said to his credit, 
and it is a splendid revelation of character to say it of any 
one, that he was not a stormy-mouthed gentleman of more 
leisure than learning, or of more exactness than suavity. 

“And I never know where I’m at, unless I’m in the 
furor and dust and storm and roar of a mighty quarrel, — 
then I’m in my natural element, as a fish in water,” said 
Clarissa, looking askance at Clever Hesperus. 

“Nobody’s absolutely right,” said Alice. 

“That’s what Lombroso and Nordau say,” remarked 
Peter Wilkins. 

“If I may veer a little from this main-traveled road of 
talk,” said Miss I. Single thoughtfully, “I wonder how 
many little and big grievances at home, could be palliated 
by ‘I beg your pardon,’ or ‘I was wrong.’ Easy, effectual, 
but hard to say. Pride prohibits yielding, ‘I don’t care’ 
overrules surroundings, and self-love will not become sec- 
ond in the family row. How easy in the beginning to 
‘let it go.’ When the battle is fought out, let us say, and 
one is slain and the other badly wounded, what great 
principle was fought for, what was gained?” 

“There should be a domestic Hague in every home,” said 
Peter Wilkins. “And would be were it not for Mr. 
Ego’s supremacy.” 

“ ‘Let it go,’ ” said Miss I Single, “is easy, effectual, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


213 


good, and brings happiness and final supremacy. It is only 
a word, — ‘beg pardon,’ — and the other surrenders and re- 
veres you. But False Pride and Miss My Rights are great 
scrappers.” 

“How will one help what he is. What I am I am,” said 
Alice. 

“There are two ones in every one,” said Peter Wilkins; 
“an intellectual and an emotional one, a good and an evil 
one, a saint and a devil. So it becomes a simple question 
which one, Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, you will let represent 
you, perhaps falsely in either case, for the time being.” 

“If I may ‘butt in’ (this is a slang phrase, I beg you all 
to remark),” said Clever Hesperus, “I think everybody is 
just what he is, no more and no less.” 

“Evidently,” said Peter Wilkins, seeing only the point of 
his patent leathers. 

After a moment, in which the tide of talk almost sub- 
sided, Alice abruptly blurted out: 

“I move and second, gentlemen and ladies, that we ad- 
journ to meet at once in Washington, and there resume 
the unfinished business of this meeting.” 

“What unfinished business — love?” asked Peter Wil- 
kins, affecting the simple minded. 

“I — I — I — it’s unanimous,” cried Miss I. Single with 
kindling enthusiasm. 

“May we not proceed in a joint body to the Capitol city, 
like Coxey’s army, and if necessary we can respectably pe- 
tition the President of his country for his own glory’s sake 
to lend a hearing to our very weighty cause,” amended 
Alice. 

“It seems to me, if I may be allowed to judge in this 


214 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


exceedingly important matter, that it is a prudent thing 
to do to carry this unfinished business into the boundaries 
of its best friends instead of digressing upon it down here 
by the seashore where the waves have neither emotion nor 
intellect, according to the philosophy of our mutual friend 
Peter Wilkins.” Clever Hesperus endeavored to look 
pleased. 

An editor whose hastily formed ideas on some topic he 
has read nothing about, are clear as mud, could not have 
been guilty of a more exactly involved sentence. 

“Shall we move upon the station in force at eleven 
o’clock to-night, catch the train, and wend our way slowly 
to Washington?” said Alice still the prime mover in the 
proposal. 

“Agreed,” cried all. 

And they took that train. 


CHAPTER XXII 


W HEN they arrived in Washington, a “jolly” 
quartette as could be, notwithstanding an 
uncomfortable Mr. Exact made one of 
the party, the two young ladies were not 
a little surprised to meet Earl Nero Pen- 
sive upon the point of entering a railway coach for New 
York. 

With extreme presumption Clarissa Harlow, alias Miss 
I. Single, approached him, after having dismissed her 
friends peremptorily and freakishly with the remark that 
she could be found at the Ebbitt any time. She was ser- 
ious beyond all custom, and all wondered yet respected her 
dismissal of herself. It was evident she had approached 
a crisis. Alice “tore open her eyes,” — that was all. Clever 
Hesperus approached an astonished look. 

Hitherto Nero had avoided Clarissa. And she had been 
seeking him. It was her exceeding good fortune to meet 
him. He was greatly confused, like a felon when the 
court passes sentence upon him. It was most unfortunate 
for him to meet her there — there of all places. If Alice 
Moore-Greenfield had not been present. He seemed to 
understand Clarissa Harlow’s movement upon him in all 
its details. He knew her only by this name. He was 
dragooned into patient submission. His politeness was his 
undoing in this instance, and he restrained his impression 

215 


2l6 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


to flee because it would have been undignified and contrary 
to courtly rule. 

Clarissa did not smile when she hurried down the plat- 
form toward him. She moved with awakened step and 
non-readable face. He startled when he saw her hastening 
to intercept him, and when she came up he looked sharply 
into her eyes. Neither longer observed the throng of peo- 
ple hurrying to and fro. He had hitherto been almost al- 
ways able to approximate her thoughts in the variations of 
the marvelous curves at the corners of her mouth ; and 
now he saw threatening shadows there. He did not fear 
her — it was the probable public scene. 

And he, a titled lord, regarded it a matter of imperti- 
nence to be questioned as to his purposes, motives, or deeds. 
He owed no confession to any man or any authority, and 
Clarissa’s impossible demeanor was construed as an assault, 
and therefore according to the laws of war he was com- 
pelled to take the defensive. He was prepared for war be- 
fore a single gun had been fired or he was asked to sur- 
render. Emotions are quicker to respond than intellect. 
No guilty man is at ease where exposure is possible. And 
now he was confronted with what he had long been shun- 
ning. 

She had not, he thanked his graces, offered the sen- 
sational story to the press. But now publicity seemed 
inevitable. He was stared at by ugly looking possible 
conditions. But one is never the victim of a Bull Run 
till after the battle. 

As Clarissa approached, with glaring white teeth and 
intense conviction she said: 

“How do you do, sir?” She courtesied with the proper 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


217 


angle of an English lady. Her round pearl dark eyes 
had commanded the nymphs of peace to retire. He saw 
therein the eagles of war. 

“I have no reason to reprobate you,” he answered, 
“and will not without reason. You, I am persuaded, 
think you have reasons for maligning me at will, but that 
is your mere mental attitude.” 

“You grow very deliberately philosophical, where feel- 
ings, the whole sum and substance of life, are so vitally 
concerned.” 

“Let us not misunderstand.” 

“We will not, can not, do not misunderstand, Nero 
Pensive.” 

“I trust, Miss Clarissa Harlow — ” 

“This from you, Nero Pensive!” 

Alice now came up. Her dismissal was void, when she 
saw her friend likely to be in need of her. She had 
recognized the man to whom Clarissa was talking. She 
said with hauteur and reproachful voice: 

“Mr. Ron Cornwallis, I — .” She knew no other 
name for him. She had not the faintest symptom of a 
desire to meet him, but on the other hand felt timid and 
insecure, recollecting the attempted kidnapping. 

Clarissa turned with large, wondering eyes, fairly dis- 
crediting her ears, and interrupted Alice: 

“Girl, what do you say!” 

Alice was astonished at the peremptoriness and ani- 
mation of Clarissa. She had a vision. Had Clarissa not 
confided all in her. Had she discovered something! What 
could her attitude mean ! 

Clarissa was horrified to discover that Nero Pensive 


218 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


and Ron Cornwallis were one and the same person, and 
that he is the one Alice had married without becoming 
his wife. 

The culprit stood there very composed, awaiting the 
clarification of the minds of these two frivolous, “smart” 
Americans. He was an Englishman, and he felt per- 
fectly secure in that fact. He said not a word. It was 
not for him to speak. He owed no explanations or apolo- 
gies to any one, and so words would be unwise, un- 
diplomatic. The “women had the floor.” He would 
deny all knowledge of Alice, even both, if necessary and 
shout “blackmail.” He was by no means entirely at the 
mercy of infuriated beasts, like a matador. He had a 
fine fighting chance for his life. 

“I called him Ron Cornwallis. What do you call 
him? And who knows who he is?” said Alice in in- 
flections that stabbed. 

It was not high-toned or rulable to change his name, 
but when an “easy little young American girl,” the smart- 
est women of the world, proposed a “lark” he was her 
mouton, and it was merely a part of the romantic “lark” 
to alter his name. The genuine Nero Pensive could not 
act the undignified part that Ron Cornwallis did. 

“This man! This is Nero Pensive,” said Clarissa de- 
cisively and bitterly. 

“Nero Pensive!” 

“Yes.” 

“It’s Ron Cornwallis!” 

“They are both this one man,” said Clarissa. 

“Impossible!” 

“He’s the man you married. I never suspected he was 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 219 

the man.” Clarissa turned full to him, as if demand- 
ing a vocal expression from his grace-annointed lips, — 
lying lips, nevertheless. He cared not what she de- 
manded. 

“I never dreamed they were the same. Nero Pensive 
you had made me well familiar with, as I had you with 
Ron Cornwallis. I repudiated the mental egotist when 
the words were scarcely cold that united us, I escaped his 
kidnapping, and now I discover his duplicity. The fel- 
low seems defective in that which makes for excellent, 
I X L manhood.” 

“As you are delinquent in that which makes for the 
femininity of a Griselda,” said he stirred to the quick. 
His cold words breathed the frost of Septentriones and 
his voice was as soulless as the wind. This return to 
Alice was a winged arrow that wounded. But healed, — 
healed the girl of her emotional defects. For the first 
time in life she saw herself as others saw her. She was 
shocked at the picture. 

“I have more things in the olio against you,” said 
Clarissa directly to him. 

“I have no objection to that,” he said in the effort to 
smile and represent his retort as smart or witty. 

“It boots me not to hear your indifference,” said 
Clarissa. 

“I’m neither hot nor cold, neither up nor down, be- 
cause of your mind or emotion in the matter,” said he, 
“and your words have no force in altering or directing 
my course,” he said coldly, calmly, flatly, impudently. 

“Perhaps you remember Paris, and the attraction of a 


220 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


certain wealthy American, named Mina Wadsworth,” 
said Clarissa trenchantly. 

He did not answer. The train he had intended to go 
away on escaped at this moment, he observed. This 
fact perturbed him less than his tyrannical, unsubduable, 
insubordinate feelings. But his smooth exterior belied 
his actual inner state. His attitude, voice, and words 
were classically correct. 

He glanced after his train now going away, and took 
two steps to convey his disarranged purpose. 

“I bid you good day, ladies,” bowing considerately to 
them. He went out and took a cab. 

Peter Wilkins and Clever Hesperus regarded the 
whimsical conduct of the girls, in running away after 
a stranger, as a matter of no concern to them. The man 
might be a brother or an old lover. At some point sooner 
or later the girls would vouchsafe some sort of explana- 
tion of their conduct, in apology for so unceremonious 
treatment. So they departed from the station without 
delay. 

Clarissa sprang into a cab, bade Alice get in too, and 
directed the driver to follow the first cab. 

Nero had anticipated this movement, and in fact saw 
both girls enter a cab. He had directed his driver to 
let him out at the Capitol. This was done. He walked 
up the steps and stood on the top watching the other cab 
stop. Then he entered the rotunda and waited, thinking 
he would easily circumvent these inexperienced young 
American girls. 

But Clarissa proceeded not in the line of his supposi- 
tions. She called a patrolman, gave him money, and told 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


221 


him to shadow her and Alice. They next entered the 
rotunda, and barely saw Nero turn to the left and dis- 
appear. Then she instructed the patrolman to “run that 
man down” and report to her at the Ebbitt as speedily as 
possible. It would be big money for him not to miss the 
man. 

They returned and took the cab and disappeared, very 
much to Nero’s satisfaction. He would not run into that 
swarm of bees again, not while his sanity could be relied 
upon. He had easily and successfully eluded them, nay 
outwitted them, and with no deep scheming to effect it. 
An inner pleasure filled the decayed moral cells of his heart 
as his mind resurveyed the whole incident and drew the 
conclusion that he was in no serious immediate danger. It 
was possible to dodge even well-willed women. He 
schemed with big eyes, speaking figuratively. 

To confess the truth he was not prepared to meet both 
of them at once, and the complications that had arisen un- 
foreseen rendered it wholly inadvisable for him to claim 
and carry away the wife of his New York banter. Here- 
after he would deny her, since Nero Pensive never knew 
her, — it was Ron Cornwallis. He certainly would not be 
dragooned into any complications with these two uncon- 
scionable young ladies, nor would he be an outraged party 
to the American stand-and-deliver sort of love making. In 
honest language, at that moment this whole American im- 
broglio had a bitter taste about it, if indeed it was not 
surcharged with a real affliction. There was an easier way 
out of it than the brutal Brutus method, and that was a 
return to mother country. But that smacked somewhat 
of the baby act. 


222 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


But he would see. He was not compromised yet as an 
Englishman, whatever the American system of casuistry 
might be. Not to be ungallantly, stupidly brusk, he was 
not going to be “cornered” by two frolicksome, feather- 
weight, idle-hearted American girls, even if the great, im- 
personal public did rave over the perfection of beauty of 
both and praise them as marvels of sweetness and love. Of 
course they are both rich in a limited sense, but they are 
not able to “match dollars” with Miss Wadsworth. Dol- 
lars were what he wanted, not the heiress or the beauty, 
or the public commendation accorded her — dollars, cold 
“almighty dollars.” 

It was early morning, shortly after the great social gath- 
ering given by Mrs. Spillman, when Nero was intercepted 
by the arrival of Clarissa and Alice. He was extricating 
himself, for one thing, from the social tangle precipitated 
by this function, and, for another, was proceeding to meet 
Mith Gulliver, who had communicated to him that he had 
some knowledge of Dean McBarron. And it was vastly 
important that he and his henchman should consult to- 
gether in New York at once and decide on future action. 
But now he would defer his going for a day, and if possi- 
ble “have a definite understanding” with Miss Mina 
Wadsworth, the financially valuable lady. The unfore- 
seen arrival of the other two ladies made this conclusion 
imperative. Exposure must be forestalled. Exposure is 
a monstrous Griffin. Exposure unsettles, undoes things 
ruthlessly. It was easy to inform Mith of the delay. 

He sat down a moment to plan further and decide on his 
course. He was confident that the grand stage beauty had 
not been definitely repressed by the present elusion, and he 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


223 


knew she would confront him again, perhaps to better 
purpose than before, at some most unhappy moment, to 
be sure. He knew something of the determination of this 
stage star, who had sent a thrill throughout Europe, and 
it was necessary to settle matters definitely before she 
could defeat him with uncanny personal reports. Neverthe- 
less, self-assurance confided to him that he would “win 
out” in the long run. There was not the shadow of a 
doubt in his begrimed intellect that she was on his trail 
for the single purpose of circumventing him and defeating 
his purpose to marry the Ex-Senator’s valuable daughter. 
Do as she would he had determined that she should not 
block his way, for money was a prime necessary article 
now for him. He must have it at all hazards, and more 
he would. Still it was indeed truly necessary for him to 
be diligent in the case, and therefore he would press the 
matter home to her this very afternoon. He would not 
telephone to Miss Wadsworth, lest she plead previous en- 
gagement, but he would do the better thing by calling on 
her unannounced. 

One of the ugly complexities in the affair was the un- 
fortunate and unwelcome presence of the two girls, Claris- 
sa and Alice, and particularly Alice. It had occurred to 
him that he might, first thing, persuade them to leave the 
city with him, but on second consideration that became 
highly improbable. And if he should, that would not rec- 
tify the probable results from causes already set in motion. 

Meantime, the detective shadowing him went to the Eb- 
bitt hotel to make report to Clarissa and Alice. He had 
very easily traced the Earl to his hotel, the Arlington, and 
there he was informed he had been since Mrs. Lena Spill- 


224 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


man’s great social function. He was not an ambassador 
from some other country, nor connected in any way with 
an embassy, though he seemed to be a man of some dis- 
tinction. He could not learn whether he was a mere trav- 
eler here or a man of business. He thought it probable he 
was a man of broad concerns. He was not an American, 
of that the sleuth was sure, at all events. It was highly 
probable he was some great foreigner traveling incognito. 

Clarissa added money to his itching palm, thanked him, 
sent him away declaring profusely he would be proud to 
render her any other service she might deign to put into his 
ready hands. She had rewarded him munificently for his 
brief service, and consequently he was graciously disposed 
to heap fulsome thanks upon her proportionate to the re- 
ward. But at present she had no further need of his suc- 
cor. His dismissal was final. 

She had already decided upon what was the immediate 
thing for her to do, and that decision formed the next step 
was less difficult. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


66 


I 


HEARTILY and sincerely beg your un- 
qualified pardon for the distressful dis- 
courtesy of coming unheralded, uninvit- 
ed, and even without your knowledge, but 
untoward circumstances, I beg to assure you 
in extenuation of my unwarranted conduct, have been 
the sole reason for this massive breach of gentility.” His 
utterance seemed to lend force to words that they did not 
possess intrinsically. He bowed very low as he stood in 
Miss Wadsworth’s open door at three p. m. She re- 
ceived him in her newest gown, as it happened, and with 
her friendliest smile, or if not that at least one the critical 
world of society would not impeach. His ready, sharp, 
gray eyes did not fail to catch the social gleam upon her 
ebullient, poetic, rose-bud young lips. And her sparkling 
brown eyes, a true gauge of the spirit that looked out 
through them, shed a singular light upon him. She of- 
fered her hand high up in welcome, as the present cus- 
tom is, and he clasped her fingers’ ends in a perfunctory 
manner. He was not cognizant of the sense she received 
as their fingers touched, or connected as do magnetic 
poles. The slight touch threw a cordon of guards around 
her, and set the motion or gate of her mental pace. His 
face was a dead, faded photograph, of an indescrible es- 
sence behind. 

“I deem an apology unnecessary,” she replied, of course. 

225 


226 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


What else could she say and not be rude, which is more 
to be reprobated than a “white lie.” 

“It gives me extreme happiness to have this assurance,” 
he insisted. She caught the perfunctory note in it, just 
as you do, friendly reader. 

She requested him to enter, and led the way into the 
luxuriously furnished room. He sat down in the chair 
indicated. The soft air of wealthy comfort appealed to 
him, and he reflected that such luxuries were his by right 
of birth. It is conceded, as a point in his favor, that he 
had the grace not to talk about himself, a rare trait in 
most people; for with them the richest and best and only 
worth-while article on earth is self. 

“I was just going for my friend Olive Pendell, and 
we were going to have a little outing. Will you ac- 
company us, or shall I invite her by telephone to call 
here with us?” Shrewd girl! 

Could anything have been more fortunate, or less 
fortunate, — fortunate outing with her, unfortunate that 
there was to be a third party. That common folk say- 
ing stole across the frowning horizon of his mental vision : 
“Two is company and three is a crowd.” 

“Have you promised Miss Pendell to ‘drop by’ for 
her?” 

“Yes.” 

“May we not take a jaunt, or brief swing about Arling- 
ton Heights before calling for her?” he requested. 

“Yes.” 

Why did she say that! Her evil angel was in the 
ascendant to-day. She flung uncomplimentary epithets at 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


227 


herself for that “yes.” But it was in her to taunt him. 
His hand-touch was the immediate cause. 

They were speeding through Georgetown on the way 
from the city, and he took it that his one opportunity 
above all others had come. He began: 

“This is, I take it, the time for unfinished business, to 
be considered at this adjourned meeting. I trust there 
will be no opposition methods of obstruction. I refer 
to the bill of love introduced in the House, numbered, 
read, discussed, and deferred till the subsequent meet- 
ing.” 

“Beg your pardon — it was laid on the table.” 

“Then you must have been the mover,” he said. 

“And you the seconder,” she said with gaudy compos- 
ure and dignity. 

“Then I move to take the bill from the table. It 
is so ordered,” he jested. 

“The mover must ask the vote to take the bill from the 
table,” she said. 

“Or the seconder, according to Read’s Rules of Order,” 
he amended. 

“Then I vote to send the bill back to the committee to 
be amended, corrected, and reconsidered in the committee 
room,” she laughed. 

“The motion is out of order.” 

And so on they jested till the chauffeur was carrying 
them up the hill to the level of the heights, where a por- 
tion of the army encamped during the Spanish-American 
war. They were together in the rear seat, and he was 
centering not only a pensive gray eye upon her but an in- 

16 


228 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


tense purpose. She could not know from his bland man- 
ner how close to the evil of desperation he was. 

“Will you give me the sweet and rare privilege of call- 
ing you my dear?” 

“If I could be sure of the meaning you put in the phrase 
‘my dear.’ ” 

She had heard of English male dominance and brow- 
beating of wives, and she distrusted his words. She would 
give them their American signification, and he would give 
them their English meaning, no doubt ; and these meanings 
differed if experience was to be accepted in interpretation. 

“Why, surely all that the words bear in them, all the 
lexicographers give them, all you and I put into them, 
‘and then some.’ That’s what I mean.” He seemed to 
have scored a point. 

“No reservations?” 

“None!” 

“Believe me, sir, I’m not hesitating, or dallying like a 
moth around a light, or playing fast and loose with you. 
I should dispise myself for such unladylike conduct. My 
mind is clear. I’m not a jester, or a tease, but — ” 

“Nay, nay, let me urge my cause ; let me plead it as for 
my life; let me argue it as an advocate before a jury for the 
life of a prisoner ; let me place my heart as it were a burnt 
sacrifice upon an altar; let me repeat every fond word I 
have so long cherished for you ; let me implore upon bended 
knees for a bit of charity for the faithful and great love I 
bear for you; let me swear it before high heaven in the 
presence of all the saints and angels; let me repeat every 
secret imagination of my heart, every sweet dream with 
you as the central figure, every lovely hope I have cher- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


229 


ished, every fond fancy of the future; let me say what I 
shall say with my last breath, — that no one is to me what 
you are; no one who means so much; no one so necessary 
to my life ; no one so competent — ” 

“I think I understand,” she broke in. “I can not doubt 
such charming asseverations. They are strong, if not 
windy; literary, if not meaningless. They are too strong 
and suggest a weak cause.” 

“No — no!” His eyes had in them a strange mixture of 
flash and reprimand. “No! O, this great America that 
trains even the ladies in nescience — in love infidelity. In- 
deed, I’m most candid, shall I say it in clear American 
candor, most desperately in earnest in what I have said. 
Between me and the objects I look upon, I frankly confess, 
your sweet vision intervenes, and I’m sometimes accused, 
on account of it, of raw abstraction and crude violation of 
the social canons. Believe me, let me pray, I’m telling 
you the cause of a soul in down-pressing desperation. You 
will not ‘throw me down.’ You will take time to consid- 
er. You will not be uncomplimentary and answer before 
you have considered the appeal I have made and the need 
of justice for me.” 

“We Americans believe in justice for both sides. For 
there is no quarrel or love affair that does not concern two 
people, at the very least, and not infrequently many more.” 

“Pray, consider me. I do not want to become mean in 
your eyes by being meanly humble and undignified in the 
humility and pitiable pleadings of my fallible speech and 
too zealous heart; but I would be, were it necessary to 
reach your heart and be in it the alpha and omega, the be 
all and end all.” 


230 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Pray, be easy. I’m considering your pleadings, -^in 
my way, not yours, of course. The right of the wife to 
private judgment is not denied in my great land, and the 
daughter enjoys the same privileges of the mother. And 
I’ve no desire to have you make a fool of yourself and a 
laughing stock and a joke in my youthful circle, nor my- 
self to be the flattered recipient of your fine speeches, — 
which you know the worth of better than I do, — but I 
shall not deny you the opportunity of expressing your fine 
words and fancy-fetched sentiments, if that is any pleasure 
to you. I’m not innately mean, if I do seem so.” She half 
laughed at her mock seriousness. The whole matter 
would persist in taking the character of gaucherie. There 
was a latent humor about it that came up before her like 
a court fool. 

“There’s something in your manner, 

There’s something in your smile, 

There’s something seems to tell me 
You’re just my style.” 

He hummed this in a good, full, baritone vocalization, 
and nodded to her every time he pronounced the word 
“your.” He could accent his smile with a catholic grace, 
despite the faint line at the corners of his eyes and the thin- 
ning hair upon his temples. This sudden gush into song 
made his sentimental effort at love making seem farcical 
and a by play to her, and thence forward she tould read 
in his words nothing but jest or comedy. 

As far away from his theme as possible, yet not to seem 
abrupt or abstract and unconcerned, which would have 
been politely condemnatory of her, she said: 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


231 


“This is an outdoor age for boys and girls, and for out- 
door love, parlor love being obsolecent, if not antiquated, 
and I wonder how the future homes will be affected by 
this variation of love making.” 

“Do you ask me what your home would be? Just what 
you would make it,” he answered promptly enough to have 
the appearance of zealousness and honesty. 

“You would have no hand in helping to make it beauti- 
ful for love and situation ?” 

“O, yes, indeed,” bending his head and looking out arch- 
ly from under his eyes, an act that did not become him, 
though he imagined it was eminently original with him. 

“You’d help to make it, how?” 

“The sweetest paradise on earth, with the only angel on 
earth in control of this domestic haven of unalloyed happi- 
ness.” 

“Well spoken, indeed.” 

“And so meant.” 

“Meanings, let me say, do not always tally with facts,” 
she observed in a tone that caused his jubilant spirits to 
fall some forty degrees below the temperate or self-com- 
fortable point. She was an enigma. Or was he an im- 
pulse with which she was flirting, if not smiling at, and 
tolling on to some unforeseen anti-climax. But — he must 
“be good.” 

“But what do you say to my proposition to form an al- 
liance by treaty and unite our hearts and interests?” 

They were returning, and had almost reached George- 
town, when the automobile stopped. The chauffeur found 
on examination that the gasoline had given out. 

Thirteen chattering, laughing, grimy-faced urchins, tak- 


232 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


ing it as a huge joke, pushed the machine into Georgetown. 
That was by far the best entertainment they had enjoyed 
for a long time. The street gamins caught the full hum- 
or of the situation, and they, of course, got out of it all 
there was in it. Even Mina and Nero fell into the feeling 
that was predominant at the moment, and laughed in uni- 
son. 

She simply said in answer to his last grave and all- 
important question, closing all further discussion for the 
moment : 

“I cannot answer you now or here.” 

“I beseech, I hope not with self-humiliating, maudlin 
beseechment, tell me then where I may next present my 
claim.” 

His persistence had the flattery of seriouness in it. He 
certainly meant something of what he had uttered with 
such marvelously well-feigned sincerity and enthusiasm. 

“Like at a barber shop you must take your chances,” 
she persisted in disconcerting jocularity. 

“This evening?” 

“You are the arbiter of your own time, and the archi- 
tect of your own fortune.” 

“This evening.” 

Of course the ramble over the country with Olive was 
now entirely out of the question. 

Clarissa Harlow was still able to make it most un- 
comfortable for Nero Pensive. His splendid bit of word 
architecture had all to be rehearsed again to Miss Wads- 
worth. It was incomprehensible, how she was acting. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


E X-SENATOR Wadsworth and Prof. Nelson 
were departing from the White House, 
when they came upon Peter Wilkins and 
Clever Hesperus, just arrived in the city 
from Atlantic City. 

The ex-Senator and the Professor had been in close 
and private conference with President Roosevelt, and it 
was understood that Prof. Nelson would accept an ap- 
pointment as the head of a monetary commission to Eng- 
land, France, and Germany, the time for the work not 
specified, except a limit beyond which the report must not 
be deferred. The fact of the consultation with President 
Roosevelt was understood to be no particular secret, but 
it is regarded as a courtesy to the Chief Executive not to 
give out information without his knowledge and con- 
sent, in matters in which he is directly concerned. 

But Peter Wilkins and Clever Hesperus knew the ob- 
ject of the interview, and also knew that the two 
men had been invited to meet and confer with him. And 
yet if no information was volunteered, of course it was 
not for them to introduce the subject and apply the 
“pump.” That would be quite proper for newspaper 
men to do. So the four men, after first greetings and 
necessary queries, walked together upon Pennsylvania 
avenue toward the Capitol, and in the direction in the 
main of the ex-Senator’s home. 

233 


234 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Some men,” said Peter Wilkins, at a proper interval 
in the conversation, a look of the crude comic in his over- 
shaped face and puzzling eyes, “some men are wonder- 
fully great, if their names appear in programs and in 
timid interviews in the papers; and should a rough-hewn 
cut come out in the body of the interview — fame!” 

“I well understand,” said the Professor, a sane twinkle 
in his bright eyes. 

“Always present company, etc.,” observed Peter prac- 
tically in apology. This opened up the ex-Senator, and 
he said: 

“In these our days of graft and caucusses and ‘slates/ 
it is not a matter for serious wonder that there are politi- 
cal degenerates. Many men of conspicuous privileges are 
missing their opportunities; and the disgraceful disclos- 
ures are a matter of shame, not alone for the acutely 
guilty but for the sad fact that average American char- 
acter is unable to meet the trial of exceptional privileges 
and temptations. And we unsmirched are no better in 
character than the men under fire, and perhaps would be 
as guilty given the same opportunity. Even editors, as 
I have evidence to know, are venal ; and we have too few 
men in control of the press like Horace Greely, Murat 
Halstead, Henry Watterson, Samuel Bowles, Whitelaw 
Reid, R. A. Dana, and many others, men whose views 
have assisted in shaping the policies and destiny of the 
country. Now this is not a mere chance curbstone opin- 
ion, and is not immature and hasty.” 

“I for my part believe in the men of our day,” said 
the exact Clever Hesperus, “but I don’t believe, I make 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


235 


bold to assert, in campaigns of bitter vituperation, or in 
brass-band campaigns.” 

“Perhaps the gum-shoe-sneak campaign, or front-door 
step campaign, or the campaign of education,” resumed 
the ex-Senator, “is no better method of informing the 
masses on the issues of the day, without party prejudice, 
than the loudest, most disorderly, most rowdyish, most 
musical campaign. This raking with a pessimists’ muck- 
rake, as the President aptly phrased it, into the political 
scrapheaps of either party is not honest, and it is even 
less honest to appeal to class-consciousness for votes. The 
man who will do that is to be mistrusted, even though 
bearing gifts. To be sure the base drum and fife, and the 
flag-draped platform in front of an old colonial portico 
are inspiring but not very informing; and it’s intelligence 
that is supposed to vote.” 

“Now, I look upon Bryan, a very eminent man in 
some ways,” said Peter Wilkins perhaps a little tartly, 
“as simply a battered, splintered battering-ram that ham- 
mers and is hammered in return. Great men, let me say 
it in bated breath, are ‘excessively scarce,’ and statesman- 
ship is out of fashion to-day.” 

“It occurs to me,” said the Professor in staid but staple 
terms, “that our old earth needs a President of all the 
nations, — a President of the world ; that is to say a Peace 
President; and I declare no man on earth fitter for that 
place than our own President Roosevelt.” 

“Perhaps you will readily meet with a great many 
seconds to that idea,” said Peter Wilkins enthusiastically. 
“No man would more heartily second it than I myself.” 

“I have no hesitancy, allow me to say, in saying I 


236 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


know of no man better fitted for the place than the gen- 
tleman named,” said the marvelous Clever Hesperus. 

“The man who stands next to John Hay in a states- 
man-like grasp of the vital interests of this country is 
William H. Taft,” said ex-Senator Wadsworth, “and we 
will better understand the truth of this the farther away 
we recede from the present. Mr. Taft is a man who 
will grow with age.” 

These three men were generously pressed to dine with 
the hospitable Ex-Senator, who had not put off his kind- 
ness for social stilt when he removed from the country to 
the Capitol City. They consented when refusal would 
seem impolite if not crude. 

Mrs. Wadsworth, ever the inseparable friend of her 
husband, and her lovely daughter, intelligent, unaffected, 
queenly, so directed the servants that the dinner was al- 
most a feast. The Ex-Senator was ever a generous liver 
and a hospitable and companionable host. They had a 
chef, whom Mrs. Wadsworth designated her household 
prime minister, and whom Mina called the kitchen premier 
or prince of the domestic cabinet ; and he was sufficient in 
himself and a pleasure to their home. They entertained in 
royal style, and to be on their list of invited guests was a 
social distinction craved by all. Mrs. Wadsworth had 
great, modest good sense, and she presided at their social 
functions in such happy manner as not only to seem good 
and noble but also very ladylike, dignified, and complais- 
ant. 

“IVe no sort of respect for the idle life,” continued the 
profuse and irrepressible Peter Wilkins, the incroyable 
but not a macaroni. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


237 


“O, haven’t you?” cried Mina with the downward in- 
flection on the last word, the ultimate of the sentence. 

“None, I assure you, — none in the least. Too many of 
them would be dangerous, and there is danger in multi- 
tudes.” 

“People at watering resorts have long been laughed at 
for their idleness. It is said that their lives are frivolous — 
not serious. They are simply ‘having a good time,’ a loaf- 
ing time, a droning time.” Mina was laughing. 

“Bum life,” interjected Peter Wilkins, in imitation of 
solemnity that might be mistaken for the real. “Bum life, 
flirting, angling, dressing, objectless, purposeless — faultless, 
if whimsicality is left out of the count.” 

“A beautiful season of refreshing, I should say, if I 
spoke the germ of my somewhat limited experience,” said 
Clever Hesperus. 

“I should say, at a venture, it is a theatre of love and 
tragedy,” remarked Prof. P. Thomas Nelson. “Most peo- 
ple there carry on a dual mental process. The one ex- 
presses the Dr. Jekyll and the other Mr. Hyde, which is 
nothing more than mental reservations and suppressions. 
Even when one speaks, declaring openly he is plain and 
outspoken, perhaps thinking he is open and frank, he is de- 
ceived. He is not giving out all he thinks. And he may 
utter a certain thought that arises — flattery, maybe — and 
at the same instant hold back a monstrous criticism. While 
speaking thus he may boldly look you in the eye and note 
other secrets of your nature to find fault with. And is this 
reservation dishonest, hypocritical ? Or is it mercy, charity, 
kindness, politeness, wisdom?” 

“I think, Professor, your statement, though sweeping, is 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


238 

correct in the main, making allowances for variations in 
different natures,” observed Mina, smiling upon all, a sort 
of omnibus smile as a hostess’ duty. She was pleased to 
have this public opportunity of expressing a concert of 
opinion with him. 

The next moment Prof. Nelson approached her, and 
invited her to the shade of the splendid denizen of the for- 
est, now segregated from his kind and standing alone and 
solitary in the Ex-Senator’s ample yard in the midst of a 
bustling, busy, booming, throbbing city. The rest entered 
the smokeroom, and while discussing the “weed” consid- 
ered Barrie’s “Nicotine.” 

As Mina and the Professor sat upon the rustic seat be- 
neath the magnificent and sheltering arms of the noble old 
Roman of the primeval forest, while the evening shadows 
stealthily deepened over the city, the Professor said, timid- 
ly but impressively and evidently profoundly serious: 

“I’m on my imaginary knees confessing to you what has 
long been in my heart a secret that has made me unhappily 
happy, and I’m not asking pardon or forgiveness from my 
confessor, but I’m asking whether she is equally a guilty 
accomplice with me. Need I define more specifically?” 

“I — think — ” 

“No. I’ve bungled this awfully. I do not ask you an 
incriminating question. I did not mean to do so. But pray 
tell me, that I am not obtruding my love and making my- 
self not only disagreeable to you but objectionable. O, I 
wish you to know, know in all its depth and length and 
breadth and height, the measurements of my long-con- 
cealed love for you. I trust I have not mistaken or mis- 
judged my cause, and I beg that you will hear without ob- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


239 


jection what I have long intimated to you in so many 
small ways.” 

“I can not doubt your honesty, or that you have uttered 
the sincere sentiments of your heart; but — ” 

“O, can you use huts in this case! I had hoped I had not 
read you wrongly, or mistranslated your emotional atti- 
tude, nor read into the lines what was not there, and I can 
not yet think I have loved so fondly, with every vibration 
of my soul element, and that it has been without a response 
from your soul magnet. I shall never cease to think you 
could see where I have stood all along, and that you tol- 
erated my attitude without giving me an intimation at 
some point or other that I was mistaken in your divine 
afflatus status. There is a secret thought, unexpressed and 
inexpressible in vocal language, that is sure and faithful 
and never misleading, in the heart of every one, and that 
often speaks when least expected, and that thought in you 
never repulsed me and said I was laboring under a delusion 
and that I was obtruding myself on an innocent heart. I 
have not at any time found reasons, however subtle or the 
opposite, that interdicted my loving you, and loving you 
with a sincerity and fervency that should affect my whole 
after life. O, I grow garrulous upon this matter, but 
what tongue would not plead for its life and all there is in 
life, — for the love of a girl of so supreme excellence. You 
are very patient to hear me through, and that is entirely 
non-translatable to me.” 

He took her hand and she did not object. He pressed 
it between both of his. His eyes glowed with the intense 
fervency of his soul that seemed to be inditing a good mat- 


240 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


ter. His tongue was ready but it did not ramble or speak 
vagaries. 

She was reserved, modest, impressed. Her eyes, in the 
declining light of day, did not seek his, for she needed no 
ocular proof. Her sense of it all was clear and sufficient. 
She felt the truth ; and she was not mistaken. 

She was impressed with the glory of a love so noble and 
unskillful. It was the pure and undefiled and uncontami- 
nated and uncontaminating love of a man of marked schol- 
arship and general superiority, and she knew that he would 
not be satisfied with evasion, though he might not insist on 
an immediate categorical answer. She was confident how 
she felt in the matter, and had a sufficiently definite line of 
thought to make clear her position toward him. It was a 
clear conviction in her mind that she had not been recreant 
to his tentative, subtile advances from time to time, nor 
had she treated indifferently his slight, pointed attentions 
on many occasions. This might be ground for self-con- 
demnation or self-gratulation, as the case might be. How- 
ever, in a general estimate his conduct seemed less an evi- 
dence of love than a mark of admiration for her, as a young 
lady nearer to his liking than the generality of them. His 
attentions seemed to have more of an impersonal character 
than of a love intent. Upon the whole she could not think 
she had held out encouragement, nor discouragement. Be 
it remarked, she was not disposed to find fault with herself 
for her course toward him, nor to commend herself. 

“I have no desire to evade the issue you have presented,” 
she said gravely, agitatedly, but without withdrawing her 
hand. It was impossible to lift her twinkling, almost tear- 
suffused brown eyes from the roses that seemed to labor on 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


241 


her bosom, where they lay imprisoned with a pin. They 
had a frank confession in them. Not that she was 
ashamed of the confession, or that it would signify weak- 
ness, but because it did not seem to be the moment for dis- 
closure. 

“Pardon me — thanks! I may rejoice when the issue is 
not offensive to you. I would at once retire were it re- 
pellent to you. I trust that this old subject of love, 
threshed out over and over and over again by men and 
women ever since Adam made love to good mother Eve in 
the Garden, but new to you and me, is as marvelous and 
grand and supreme and divine and binding and obligating 
and all in all in our hearts as God meant it to be. I hope 
we may — O, I can’t avoid the we ! — my destiny is linked 
with yours, however far apart our destinies may be cast. 
My love is firm and pure, and I trust God-sanctioned and 
humanly speaking God-sanctified, and what it is, little or 
much, all, I give you. Love capacities, of course, vary in 
size, but yet all love to their utmost limit, but not in equal 
amounts. When each one is exercised to its full extent, it 
conceives it excels all others God ever formed — a natural 
conclusion though not necessarily a correct one. I can not 
help arguing. It is my ruling passion. But you see now 
how I view my case at present. I see everything on earth 
with fond eyes and appealing heart. In the midst of all 
things, — O, this is not fulsome, I hope, — I have you placed 
the triumphant queen, — the queen of my heart, hope, love, 
destiny, all !” 

“My faith in your words is unimpeachable, my secret 
self admires your engaging candor, my trust in your 
honor and genuineness is rather enhanced, and I must ex- 


242 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


press my great appreciation of the honor you do me in 
confessing so manly, so noble, so genuine a love for me — 
O words will not arise to do justice to the occasion. Let 
me see — 

“ ‘Break, break, break, 

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! 

And I would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me.’ ” 

It was a significant fact that she “dropped into” poetry. 
After that his doubts became panic stricken and were 
utterly routed. 

“There’s something noble in love, the greatest divine 
gift of God to man. It’s all for love this world goes 
on. God’s plan from the beginning embraced, as the 
greatest of all his works, the beautiful, supreme element 
or faculty of love, and he put upon its exercise, as he did 
upon all his great gifts to man, the guard of the law of 
moderation. The extravaganza of emotion, and the rap- 
ture of impulse, are ephemeral, passing, and such love is 
perishable, evanescent, fickle, frail. But as I understand 
it, all love is a thing of sensation, emotion, feeling, and 
that which dominates the intellectual is but the will of 
the wind, unstable as water, as unsatisfactory as evanes- 
cent, altering with every new face, not desirable.” 

He glowed in his earnestness of expression. He felt 
himself to be in the golden light upon the heights, though 
the shadows of evening were deepening. He was exalted 
to the seventh heaven. And yet she had said nothing 
positive. He was projecting an interpretation into her 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


243 


attitude, and the reading was simply that of his own 
lively hope. But how could it be otherwise! 

“I see no cause or loophole for disagreement with you 
upon the supreme element of love,” she said calmly, but 
she was excited, though unwilling to confess it to her- 
self. “In fact, I desire not to disagree with the absolute 
facts of nature, physical or metaphysical. But there is an 
art in making love, I’m sure you will confess.” 

Her experiences this day gave origin to this latter 
thought. He had dropped her hand. 

“Nature is true art. There may be a cultivated art,” 
he said in less love-lit, love-charged tones and more with- 
in the domain of pure logic, “and I think the heart can 
easily discriminate between the two. I hope you do not 
think I’ve been using the artifice of cultivated art to tell 
you what good tidings of good I have long stored secretly 
in my heart. I had no peace as long as I kept it sneak- 
ingly concealed there — the best thing God gives to men — 
concealed out of sight of every one.” 

“Need I explain my meaning — to you?” she said, a 
deep meaning lurking back in her intonation, and not a 
condemnatory one. She turned her beautiful, full, speak- 
ing brown eyes upon him, as if to convey a special mean- 
ing by the act of her glance as well as by the glance itself. 
And yet she was not practicing the cunning of delay or 
deception. She was honest in her manner, and the hon- 
esty was not of the transient type that is forgotten in the 
next emotional soul movement. 

“To be sure I could not be sure, and hence I took 
the clew and followed the inference. If I was wrong, I 
am glad and sorry both — glad that I was mistaken, and 


244 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


sorry that I mistook you. But, I have it in my full heart 
to say, that I’m on the eve of going to Europe, commis- 
sioned by the government, and I could not leave my na- 
tive land without knowing my fate in advance.” 

“To Europe! How soon?” 

It pleased him to see her surprise. 

“In no very far-off date. That we will go very soon, 
in a few days, is understood at present.” 

“Will you remain long?” 

She was interested, perhaps more than the simple in- 
terest of mere surprise. This was a straw. She had not 
unequivocally told him yet what she thought of him. 
However, without words she had revealed something, 
though not designing to do so. In this manner she had 
said she held him in great esteem at all events, he was 
not a worthless love-scoundrel, sitting on the muck-heaps 
of passion, dwelling in the realm of evil thoughts con- 
tinually. 

“My stay will depend upon the difficulty of obtaining 
the facts we are sent after. But I anticipate no delay 
beyond the ordinary.” 

“A year?” 

“Possibly, though we hope not.” 

“Then I may see you on the other Atlantic shore. We 
may go over in early December for the rest of the win- 
ter.” 

“That will be a joy to me, — I trust. May I hope all 
I have in my heart to hope? May I dream sweet dreams 
in my solitude in the multitude? May I still think the 
noblest things of my fancy about Miss Mina Wadsworth, 
the one woman who is to me what no other ever can be, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


245 


the one woman my heart goes out for as the only thing 
desirable on earth — may I?” 

“I have — ” 

A servant came inopportunely and announced the call 
of Nero Pensive. It was dark, though the electric lights 
quite removed the obsession of night. They were not 
aware that daylight had been obliterated and artificial 
light substituted, so engrossed had they been. 

She arose. 

“Let us go in,” she said. 

“May I write?” 

“I will be delighted.” 

“And will you tell me on paper, since you’ve been 
denied the full privileges of the tongue, the truthful and 
exact status of your heart in this matter? Or is it im- 
portant enough to you to carry in your mind and heart 
at all, — at least to a point where it can influence you to 
command yourself to write?” 

“I will write,” as they hurried into the house. 


CHAPTER XXV 


M INA was careful to give Nero no positive 
encouragement to renew his appeal, in- 
terrupted in the afternoon. 

It was not possible for her to attach 
the same weight to his addresses that she 
did to the Professor’s. And yet the man possessed evi- 
dent virtues, as shown in his masterful civilities and cul- 
tivated graceful attentions. Away from him she could 
“measure him up” as he is, or as he seemed really to be to 
her; but in his suave presence her previous opinions of 
him became problematic assumptions, scarcely shrewd 
guesses. As already stated a time or two, something — 
something dragged her back from him, as it were, and 
notwithstanding this telepathic warning he seemed to be 
a jugernaut that she could throw herself under and be 
crushed by. But her better sense informed her that this 
feeling of submission was in no wise safe or trustworthy, 
— rather it was to be regarded as a warning or symptom 
of something one should shun as decidedly disastrous, de- 
ceiving. 

Nero had already seated himself and was stiffly con- 
versing with the ex-Senator, Peter Wilkins and Clever 
Hesperus, when Mina entered accompanied by the Pro- 
fessor. This was a signal surprise to him, and he broke 
out into silent curses to himself, while smiling the hand- 
somest upon both as he respectfully greeted them. Some- 
246 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


247 


how Mina saw the Faust in his face as he saluted her. 
She was then glad he had seen the Professor in her confi- 
dential company. 

Instantly and instinctively the Chinese puzzle of the 
situation revolved itself clearly in her mind. Her deci- 
sion was formed the moment after she entered the room. 

So as soon as convenient she invited Nero Pensive and 
Peter Wilkins to accompany her to the greenhouse, where 
she would request them to examine some orchidaceous 
plants that pleased her very much. The surprising invi- 
tation was as unintelligible and profound to Peter Wilkins 
as Lamaism, and as whimsical to Nero Pensive as a Gib- 
son girl that can not be translated into every-day life. 

They followed, a profoundly deceptive jocularity in 
their manner, but willing victims of the deception. They 
would wait to read the immediate future of the next hour 
as it should transpire. They were sure they would be ac- 
tors in the comedy. 

The girl was an enigma to Nero, and Peter had no 
theory concerning her, for he no sooner settled upon what 
he supposed her to be in esse than she, by some strange rev- 
elation of herself a? he supposed, at once confounded all 
his well fortified analyses of her. Notwithstanding she 
had firmly declined to go under the mask of Wilkins all 
her life, she nevertheless had not aroused vicious elements 
in his nature that would be revenged tenfold but had 
instead won his fonder, better friendship that would 
never die and that would do her any favor in his power 
to confer. 

She pointed out her orchids, and related the circum- 
stances of Mrs. Benjamin Harrison’s great admiration 


248 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


for them and of her exercising her pencil and brush in 
portraying them in life-like exactness. She told how she 
herself and Mrs. Grover Cleveland had together made 
special search at one time for rare beautiful flowers, and 
had not been able to find anything in their judgment 
more exquisite than orchids. She went on with her sim- 
ple story about orchids, relating many little impressive 
incidents, and protracting her talk, so that both men had 
to reduce themselves to the noble attitude of deeply in- 
terested listeners, — a function rare in most people. Both 
wondered at her comprehensive knowledge of orchids and 
great, inexhaustible fund of incidents pertaining to this 
hardy, showy flower. She moved about with wily grace, 
Peter Wilkins imagined, and he conceived he saw pro- 
found purpose in it all. Nevertheless, it seemed to be ap- 
parent that the silent drama had no reference to him, — 
that he was a mere super. And that was fine, just his 
humor, anything in the world for her, the rarest girl of 
all girls on earth, the most truly, picturesquely human, 
the most positively divine. To be sure, now, she would 
never be anything but Peter to her, but thank fortune she 
would always be Mina to him; always be his dearest 
sister, never his sweetheart, and therefore he would never 
create Petrarchian odes to her. He read in her present 
animation an effort to countervail or overcome some- 
thing inimical or undesirable relative to Nero; and yet 
girl’s ways are often misleading or “flirtacious.” And 
again, suppose he had not read the events correctly and 
she were in truth putting forth an ambitious effort for 
commendation. However, such a purpose, so shallow 
and bird-witted, he could not attribute to her. There 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


249 


was nothing, he decided finally, for him to do but to 
stand still and see what he would see. In nothing could 
he take the initiative. Her smile, was it a deceitful 
smile, a trick smile, a bit of social hypocrisy, almost ap- 
proaching the admirable? 

Peter Wilkins profusively, intrusively thrust his nose 
into a Marechal Neil. 

“I hope I do not give offense to the roses by my ex- 
ceeding familiarity,” he said looking up for a remark. 

“My beauties have been better trained,” Mina said, in 
the color of a Jacque-minot, as some maniachal philoso- 
phers would say, or profess to believe. 

“They are like basilisks imbibing the color of their 
surroundings,” Nero observed in a fitting manner. Peter 
Wilkins took note of the compliment. He was jealous 
that he was not the pater of it. So he said supple- 
mentary : 

“Or hypocrites.” 

Nero flashed at him. Peter saw it not, he wished Nero 
to see. 

“I decapitate the intractable,” she remarked. 

“We are in a position worse than a Torquemada could 
invent,” said Peter Wilkins; “and may lose our heads,” 
he added. 

“You are not flowers,” she answered. 

“At least not hothouse,” said Peter Wilkins, glancing 
clandestinely at Nero, whose Lordship in an American 
view might be taken as a social hothouse product. 

“And in no danger of losing our unworthy, un- 
crowned heads,” said Nero direct to Mina. 


250 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“How do you gentlemen mean about losing your 
heads?” asked Mina slily. 

“O, we mean not by wine, women, success, joy, flat- 
tery, promotion, money, debauchery, and the like,” an- 
swered Nero. 

“Nor love,” amended Peter Wilkins. 

“Your explanation is comprehensive,” she answered 
in half melancholy meditation. 

“I would be a decapitated flower before very long, 
should I be potted and labeled,” said Peter in sober 
comedy. 

“Perhaps,” she assented. 

“I would be obstreperous; am so by nature; and it 
would be unnecessary for me to attempt to explain in 
order to save my poor head, for my style of thought 
would give me dead away and excite you to combat me 
more. I could set up the plea in ordinary that I was not 
there to explain, not there to apologize, but you would 
not hear me, and would go on and impose dictations upon 
me. I would aver I couldn’t understand your motive for 
not listening to my explanation, which as I saw it needed 
no combatting, but which you did not see that way. I 
could not understand you, unless you were simply com- 
batting me, a poor, mismated, unkissed, yellow flower, 
and not my plea for my head. Your position of com- 
bat, toward me personally instead of toward my argu- 
ments, would show me to be a persona non grata to you 
and my theory deserving of no consideration at all.” 

Peter Wilkins was willing to smile at his prolonged 
speech, but as no one else did he desisted. In this mo- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


251 


mentary instance his act was shaped by the immediate 
conditions. 

“But, Mr. Wilkins,” said Nero blandly, “a quarrel is 
hopeful, for all that, a thing easily remedied by a kiss, 
and prophetical of certain submerged mental states.” 

“I can find no shadow of variation in that statement 
to antagonize seriously,” said Peter. “But, if I may go 
on a little, it also signifies a certain expressed open state. 
I want to go to heaven when I die. And I fear that no 
one with a cultivated habit of criticising and fault-find- 
ing, such as I have, will ever reach that sublime port. I 
take it the charitable governor of that heavenly repub- 
lic don’t want that critical make-up of uncharitable citi- 
zenship and cranks in his domain. There the ques- 
tion propounded to each immigrant to that country, popu- 
lated by death instead of propagation, will be, I have 
reasons to think: ‘Whatsoever evil, or quarrel, ye have 
done unto the least of these ye have done it unto me.’ 
That cuts out all those who quarrel at home, those who 
fling words around carelessly like bootjacks at midnight 
cats. And where am I at? Perhaps all those who imag- 
ine that all the baggage necessary to travel with into 
heaven is a gold harp, a palm, and a pair of wings such 
as Icarus used are dead wrong; for one must also have 
an ear for music, and a tablet and pencil and a package 
of envelopes. Some pastors tell us this these latter days. 
They say all are saved who improve in quality and in 
mental attainments, and can devote themselves to the 
ecstasy of calculus in that great land of Beulah. No 
good angel is entitled to desk- room in heaven, unless he 
can solve the theorem stated thus: X 2 — Y 2 , or some 


252 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


such equally soul-thrilling equation, involving the loga- 
rithms of Napier or Briggs. The human unit is di- 
vided and subdivided, into electrons perhaps, and these 
divinity scientists have a ‘soul-mind,’ suitable to their 
theory, and so the higher education, so-called, affects the 
‘soul-mind’ for eternal good. That is to say, artificial ac- 
quirements stick and accompany one to heaven. It’s nice 
for some to think that education is salvation.” 

“And it may be, Mr. Wilkins, in a limited sense,” 
said Mina, which showed him that his “learned digres- 
sion” had not offended her. It seemed to him that Nero 
Pensive was fidgety. He thrust his obtrusive nose into 
the virtuous faces of twenty different flowers while Peter 
was “discoursing about nothing,” as he himself frequently 
characterized his light, airy, rambling talks. 

“I see very plainly that ignorance is a crime, but there 
is very much of it in the world, and in some places where 
Christianity has been taught the longest. I can’t under- 
stand this anomaly, if education is supreme,” said Peter 
Wilkins. “Of course ignorance is less a matter of habit 
than of heredity and environment. With all the most 
favorable conditions possible, a fool will be a fool still. 
Circumstances can not create capability; capability can 
largely shape environment. ‘Though thou shouldst bray 
a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will 
not his foolishness depart from him.’ And on the other 
hand, without opportunity a splendid intellect may be 
left wrapped in a napkin, — may never be awakened, and no 
doubt many a cemetery contains a ‘mute inglorious Milton,’ 
a ‘village Hampden,’ a ‘Cromwell guiltless of his coun- 
try’s blood,’ a Lincoln undeveloped. Now, I should 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


253 


truly be ‘let way down,’ if I could conceive of either of 
you thinking I was trying to say smart things to show 
what wonderful creature I am; but I say these things 
because I think I know my auditors and they know me. 
And this brings me to the ‘lastly’ of my discourse about 
nothing, really nothing, — worse than Brick Pomeroy’s 
‘Nonsense.’ Mrs. Partington had some reason for her 
existence and her son Ike’s, but I have none. Now, 
‘lastly,’ I may assume for arguments’ sake, that I don’t 
know who you are. And then answer pertly that I do 
know who you are. If you were strangers I could say 
I don’t know your names and fames and histories and 
families and wealth, — things men-made, social distinc- 
tions; but I do know at the very first glance something 
of your natures as declared by God in your person, height, 
eyes, air, spirit, voice, manner, color, style, and the like. 
Human nature doesn’t vary so much from my own. All 
have the same general mould from the same red clay, but 
vary in the degree of intensity of the being, slightly dif- 
ferent proportions of the two elements, the only elements 
that enter into the construction of every soul, that is, 
emotion and mind. So we can know a person by our- 
selves in whom there is a saint and a devil, — two things 
in every mortal, no exceptions, and must be according to 
God’s great law of opposites.” 

Peter Wilkins took the manner of a peripatetic and 
walked up and down, seemingly restless. Once he de- 
tected Nero looking furtively at him, as if to determine 
whether the garrulous chap were playing a comic part or 
simply “couldn’t help it.” A sly smile once from Mina 
was the license for the ungallant monologue. 


254 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Mina was uncertain as to the outcome of her purpose 
to consume the time in the conservatory and give the 
Earl no opportunity for a confidential conference. And 
yet she was not positively settled in her conviction that 
she wanted to deny him the privilege of a private talk. 
At all events this triangular tete-a-tete was a pleasant 
dalliance, but it could result in nothing, and therefore 
some things would have to be done over again. She hesi- 
tated, she decided, she ran to a flower with one view in 
mind and left it with another. These long speeches de- 
tracted from the interest in the flowers. Flowers never 
vary their speech, but men do. 

Everything, every fleshly thing, in the world is on 
the defensive, fearing the antagonism of the other. It is 
nature’s great law, the opposite of protection, to harm one 
another. It was so decreed in the beginning, as recorded 
in Genesis first. Strangers meet, and guard instinctively 
against words, blows, and emotions from the other. It 
is the law of dispersion, disparagement, division, disso- 
lution. Mina felt she was in a defensive attitude, and 
the assault seemed as desperate as that upon Port Ar- 
thur. 

Weakness was not the cause of her indeterminate state, 
— rent with indecision and wonder “what next.” It 
was partly due to the much agitation she had suffered in 
the course of the exciting day. 

At length she led the two gentlemen back to where 
the ex-Senator, the Professor, and Clever Hesperus were 
still smoking and discussing the issues upon which hangs 
the fate of the nation. Mina had great interest in all 
economic and social problems and had some acquaint- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


255 


ance with the modem writers upon these grave matters, 
as for instance, Henry George, Karl Marx, Lyman Ab- 
bott, Edward Bellamy, Benjamin Kidd, and others of 
less repute. However, all these writers entertained views 
from which in the main she diverged and overthrew in 
fair argument. 

Peter Wilkins entered the room first. Nero put his 
hand lightly on her arm, merely to gain her attention, 
and said in undertone: 

“A word, please, before we enter.” 

“ ‘All hope abandon ye who enter here,’ — is that your 
motive for restraining me from entering this door?” She 
laughed. Had she herself abandoned hope! 

“No. I have not quite so understood, that there was 
concert in this hot-house outing between you and Mr. 
Wilkins, or I might adopt the line you quote,” said Nero 
in a tone meant only for her ears. 

“I do not hesitate to impeach any thought that in- 
timates that Mr. Wilkins knew anything of my purpose. 
I need no accessory to my plans. But I consider him so 
loyal a friend that if I had proposed anything like a 
concert which you believe to exist in some sense, ex- 
pressed or implied, he would not have hesitated to as- 
sist me. But suppose we had agreed, what would you 
do now?” 

“Well, faint heart never won fair lady, you know we 
were told when mere children,” he said, a little dis- 
concerted. “In brief, may I ask — .” 

“Do you hint a time limit, or do you demand prompt 
responses to your love catechysm? Love is subject to no 
legislation, is the subject of no tyrant, can’t be forced, 
as you no doubt know.” 


256 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“I believe we understand each other. Still I would 
‘explain’ to you to your perfect satisfaction, as often and 
as long as you desired, but our time is consumed and I 
must hurry — the curse of the age. I have a serious and 
all important question to me to ask you. Need I tell 
you it? Please tell me that I may hope. I press that 
on you now. I would be less a man, if I was not con- 
cerned to know what would make me infinitely happy. 
Say nothing more than that I may hope. I would be a 
secret and recreant lover, if I were not ardent enough to 
urge this.” 

“I’ve no desire to shun you. We can easily, intel- 
ligently, and intelligibly express ourselves — no law to 
forbid, — and so there is no need to evade this question, 
that you insist shall be ‘fought out’ between us. I had no 
desire at the first, at no time, to evade or elude you. And 
have none now. But I’m of a singular nature — I guess, 
— and compulsion galls me, I’m free to confess.” 

“I hope you do not regard my pleadings as having in 
them in any degree the unfortunate spirit of force.” 

“No one is safely competent to read himself as he is, 
or determine the every influence, inference, implication, 
and result of his every word, act, and feeling, and so 
I’m charitable on that point,” she concluded. 

“No doubt I warmly insisted, and I do yet, and I 
don’t regret it, for no lover is worthy the name who will 
not do that.” 

He felt he had won his point over her objection. They 
stood in the light of the great hall, and he was quite 
close looking intently at her, while she saw only the 
broad steps leading to the floor above. They could dis- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


257 


tinctly hear the men within. His influence was disturb- 
ing and yet charmed. 

Peter Wilkins was wondering, and smiled to think 
that after all Nero Pensive had obtained a private inter- 
view. It was useless, was it not, to deny an English 
Earl anything he might demand. 

“There is a difference between a pleading request, a 
fair beseechment, and an insistence,” she distinguished in 
terms, turning her full, fearless brown eye in the splendor 
of sincerity upon him. Then she thought, — 

“ ‘What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted ! 

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.’ ” 

She manifested no impatience, which would have been 
insistence on her part for an adjournment at once of this 
conference, and he was certainly civilly calm, — if calm- 
ness means a lack of the emotional element, the best part 
of humanity. 

“If I but understood how to present my just cause be- 
fore you in an approved manner, a manner that is not 
bungling, I would be happy,” he said formally. 

“I hope you do not regard me as finically critical and 
methodical, with a cramped idea that there is but one 
right way to do everything.” 

“See! Again I express myself unfortunately.” He 
was not honest in what he said. 

“Am I the cause of your assumed mistakes in this, or 
are you?” It was quick, close, almost curt. 

“Not you — not you!” 

He was not execrating himself for uttering what 


258 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


seemed an untruth, but he was lamenting that her atti- 
tude of mind and emotion was such as to induce her to 
object to all he said rather than accord with him and see 
no ground for withstanding him. 

“I do not want to seem ungracious, — would avoid even 
the appearance of evil, — but the truth to tell I find I 
have not always spoken disingenuously to j^ou, when I 
was perfectly competent to do so. And I am not yet 
deprived of my common reason by ‘emotional insanity’ or 
‘exaggerated ego,’ permit me to say. Therefore no grace 
is to be accorded to me for my ‘plain-spoken words,’ 
which are necessarily undiplomatic, to say the very least, 
and unwise.” 

“But — to return. May I hope?” Truly it did seem 
useless to oppose an “English Earl.” 

“Truly, you should not ask me this, for a hope built on 
my wind-driven soul is built on sand, nothing more. 
Moreover, hope is a matter personal, and need not neces- 
sarily involve or bind two people.” 

She assured herself this statement was the very es- 
sence of frankness and pure reason, at the moment mis- 
understanding the full scope of the ingenuousness. Per- 
sonal emergency made fair many things, that on other 
occasions would be pronounced uncandid, artful. 

“I hope I may hope, to be sure. May I hope?” 

“As I intimated, I can’t adjust your mental and emo- 
tional attitudes. That is your affair. Your categorical 
manner, I indeed ingenuously confess, can not bind you 
or me, and I can’t bind myself to anything. I’m not 
disposed to moral decisions or contracts between us now. 
Time holds the fulfillment of all things. You are not 
inexperienced in love diplomacy, I understand.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


259 


“ ‘Uncertain, coy, and hard to please 
And variable as the shade.’ ” 

“ ‘When pain and anguish wring the brow, 

A ministering angel thou,’ 

is the conclusion of your countryman’s thought,” she re- 
torted on him. 

“You do not deny me hope?” 

“Neither deny nor affirm, of course.” 

“Thanks sweet girl, thanks,” said this cage of unclean 
birds, this whited sepulchre. He approached, seized her 
hand, and turned his eyes and smile in most engaging 
manner upon her face. His face seemed to have lost 
every vestige of enthusiasm, the engine and force that 
moves the world. He was but repeating his lines. His 
financially tragic desperation demanded the performance. 
He was seeking to take another’s claim to this mine of 
gold. 

She withdrew her hand resolutely, turned her face 
away, for his touch had a beseeching and confounding 
effect. It seemed indeed to pulsate evil, to inoculate her 
with something forbidding. 

At this point the male voices in the room hurtled out 
and down the corridor and away, and a confused laugh 
succeeded. Peter Wilkins had related a story on Presi- 
dent Roosevelt. One day he sent his “kids” all out to 
air in a commodious vehicle. As the driver touched the 
spirited horses and they whirled away the father looked 
fondly after them, pointed a dramatic finger at the re- 
ceding family, and exclaimed: “Isn’t that a fine lay-out 

17 


26 o 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


for you!” The story was suggestive of the President’s 
insistent views on “race suicide.” 

They had discussed stock-exchange methods, and every 
twist and turn of Wall street and “frenzied finance.” 
Peter Wilkins was confident the stock exchange is a 
gambling house pure and simple, and without it this 
country couldn’t enjoy the blessings of a panic! It is 
the medium for spreading alarms over the leased wires of 
the commission brokerage houses. No man, who buys 
and sells stocks, produces anything directly, — except mil- 
lionaires and paupers and panics. The stock-exchange 
commission brokers are purely the “lamb” herders, and 
to be sure work for the owners of the stocks they sell. 
The bank owners are the stock owners, and they easily 
bull or bear the market, and buy or sell on a “sure 
thing,” something they have made themselves, as did 
Thorpe in the “Market Place.” Peter Wilkins said “he 
was wound up.” He went on: 

“Why are court injunctions wrong? Because they re- 
strain intent to do wrong? Well, that’s a good reason, 
to be sure! Upon the same sort of class logic, the su- 
preme courts should be damned for pronouncing class 
laws unconstitutional, or any law unconstitutional that la- 
bor wants for special ‘get-even’ purposes. Labor’s views are 
not universal, not in the majority, and are not establish- 
ing new fundamental laws that were not framed in the 
Edenic curse. And furthermore, I’m going to vote dif- 
ferently henceforth and forever, because President Roose- 
velt lets it rain in spots and the farmers, one of his grat- 
est constituencies, suffer for want of rain. And again 
furthermore, he doesn’t put up farm prices high enough, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


261 

nor advance wages, nor put prices down low enough on 
the things I must buy. And, too, he lets the bosses run 
things and get rich quick, and that makes the poor poorer. 
I say, give us all a chance (don’t ask me to define 
‘chance;’ ‘chance’ means something to be sure) ; and let 
us ‘divy up’ even and ‘let out’ the tariff robbers and the 
trust thieves. I emphatically believe in equality, because 
God was wrong when he made some little trees and some 
big trees. I think I could improve a little on God’s 
work. I want equality of opportunity, equality of in- 
tellect, equality of happiness (never mind human capaci- 
ties), equality of purse (never mind the differences of 
energy bequeathed by blood). ‘Egalite, liberte, fratern- 
ite.’ I’m perfectly economical you see.” 

Peter assumed a grim seriousness. It seemed he be- 
lieved what he was saying. 

“I have no definite assurance that my very good friend 
(and he will abundantly pardon me for saying it) is en- 
tirely correct. But since he has thus openly expressed his 
sentiments, I have no doubt he is perfectly sincere and 
correct,” said Mr. Exact. 

“I’m always open and above board, and everybody 
knows just what my few lonely, scattered, deformed 
opinions are,” said Peter looking at a pattern on the 
ceiling. 

“The soundest man in ten states,” said ex-Senator 
Wadsworth, patting Peter zealously upon the shoulder. 

They emerged into the hall upon Mina and Nero 
Pensive. The evening was gone, and perhaps no one was 
quite satisfied with its eternal record, except Mr. Wads- 
worth and the Professor. And when the Professor 


262 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


walked down the hall toward the front door, accom- 
panied by the others in irregular order, he smiled kindly 
on Mina, and she saw the silent wonder in his face. 

The day was done, its tale was told, its history re- 
corded, its destiny irrevocable. All men in all the ends 
of the earth had gone forward a step into the veil of 
mystery that lies beyond, the fate of every one being 
settled from day to day by the unaccountable moves upon 
the checker-board of life. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


N ERO Pensive had long been “dodging” 
Clarissa Harlow, and the reasons for his 
course were most intense and startling. 
And it was evident that Dean McBarron 
was mixed up in the affair in a manner 
that made it agreeable not to cultivate intimacy with 
Nero Pensive. Mith Gulliver, the traitor spy on Clar- 
issa Harlow, was in New York at the dictation of his 
master. 

No one knew that Nero had been to Atlantic City, 
incognito, and he was not telling it in Gath nor publish- 
ing it in Jewry. And the police, that sagacious, under- 
fed (!) authropophagi, had not found the thief who had 
invaded the Wadsworth cottage at an hour when honest 
men should be at home. However, they had a “clew,” 
which was perhaps as much as was necessary to let the 
thief escape. 

Nero Pensive assiduously watched the telegraph of- 
fices wherever he was, giving information where to find 
him. He had received word from Mith to repair with- 
out delay to New York. This message, you know, he 
had reasons for disregarding. It was to be expected that 
other information would follow the first message. 

As he walked away from the stately home of the ex- 
Senator, pleased with nothing, he concluded to make 
still another attempt to deceive Miss Wadsworth into a 
263 


264 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


union with him. An emergency existed, and this must 
be done at once. His steps wandered into the Union 
Telegraph Office. There he signed for the expected 
message sent by Mith, his henchman. He read. Dean 
McBarron, unaccompanied by his great friend, Robert 
Burns, was at that minute either in Washington or on 
his way there. 

Clarissa knew all about this. She knew when he and 
Burns left the Chicago hospital. Burns had not neglected 
his friend in his misfortune. 

“Gad! I shall remain here,” exclaimed Nero triumph- 
antly, stalking out of the telegraph office, with eyes from 
which the love-light had fled long since and in which 
had settled confirmed blase shades. He was not elated, 
he was not moved by jealousy, no envy stirred his burnt- 
out blood, no revenge moved his mental arcanum 
to conclusions. Life had little taste for him; 
every prospect had been removed, every sweet had been 
drunk to the dregs, every source of pleasure had been 
exhausted. There was litttle worth while left in him of 
an admirable sort, such as would be creditable to offer to 
a woman to make her life nobler and happier, or such as 
a pure, decent, good woman could feel proud to consort 
with, — nothing but what would pall on the wife, turn 
bitter, and make her revolt at her unwise, unhappy com- 
bination, — a miserable, life-long, everlasting mistake. He 
no longer possessed anything that would inspire a wo- 
man to love and devotion. Indeed life was almost an 
imposition. And yet the miserable, mistaken man wanted 
money, — he thought he did. It was money and the 
want of it that had made his life an absolute failure. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


265 


Money was his undoing. A drone, by the very laws of 
nature is an evil and unhappy. All schemes for the ulti- 
mate happiness of all men alike, that omit perpetual, use- 
ful employment, are unphilosophical. For the reason 
that they omit the real source of happiness. This is 
true, because it is God-ordained human nature, — toil 
brings rest. 

So without continuous or laborious thought or un- 
broken strain of emotions, Nero plodded along the street 
in the light of the power-plant, and at last stumbled into 
his hotel and into bed. There was little difference to 
him whether it were night or day. It is true that he 
who should write this roue’s biography would have to 
note that his greatest activity was at night, and that his 
deeds rarely took being in daylight. He had, in undis- 
guised truth, been a blackwinged bat, neither shunning 
night nor appearing at ease in the glow of the sun, which 
is the lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path of 
most of God’s best creatures. 

And this was the man seeking the hand of America’s 
brightest, best, purest young ladies, not for a life of ser- 
vice to her for her happiness but for the unholy and sel- 
fish purpose of obtaining money — money, and that only. 
It meant her certain destruction, and he knew it. She 
was nothing to him, nothing more than any other woman ; 
her purse was all. Would money be her undoing? He 
would see her on the morrow, and at one coup de grace , 
maybe a coup de main , he would make a fortune for him- 
self alone, — one and indivisible, one exceeding the mines 
of Golconda or Tarshish. He would steal a gold mine. 
It was a speculation without the element of chance in it. 


266 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


And he slept. But there were winds even in this man’s 
sleep. The Sahara of his immediate life had no oases. 
Sentiment had been taken away, or lived up or out, con- 
sumed, and he was in the category of the man from 
whom Jupiter had removed all sensibility or feelings at 
the man’s own unwise request. 

Mina was in the great, unhappy world of hesitancy, 
doubt, indecision, and to break the spell of it was not pos- 
sible. However, her heart was correct through it all. 
Her father, not as a thing of indifference, but on the 
ground that he could not meddle in so important affair 
to her, refused to counsel her but not to talk about the 
English Earl and Prof. P. Thomas Nelson. And her 
mother, with equal wisdom, kissed her daughter, talked 
liberally and openly about the two men and Mina’s po- 
sition in the rivalry, but said in so vital a question which 
should affect the whole life of the girl whom she loved 
too well to mislead by her own feelings, she could not, 
dared not advise. It was not a question as to what the 
mother’s preferences were. It was the daughter’s. The 
daughter had not interfered in the mother’s love choice, 
and the mother should not interfere in the daughter’s. 
The situation was most intense for the girl. It was a 
hot debate between her intellect and her emotions or 
heart. And there was no court to assist. Her heart 
mistrusted the man, as the Trojans did the Greeks even 
bearing gifts, but her unemotional judgment was in- 
clined to hear him. She was rent, she was torn, she 
was broken on the wheel, she was tortured, she 
was consumed as with a fire, she was alone as one in a 
frigid zone or on an ice floe, she was in a pit she had 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


267 


not digged, she was in the agony of tears. And in the 
privacy of her room she prayed God, who had always 
been her counsel and her guide, to be with her in this 
last trial. His word has always said to her: “He will 
be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: 
fear not, neither be dismayed.” And she slept, almost 
the dreamless slumber of those with clear conscience. 

Nero Pensive, next morning, was walking on a by- 
street, his object being to escape conspicuousness, when 
he turned a corner plump into the faces of Clarissa Har- 
low, Alice Moore-Greenfield, and Clever Hesperus. The 
surprise was well distributed, and no one appeared speci- 
ally to disguise the fact. Nero bowed gravely and lifted 
his hat. And so did Clever Hesperus. The young ladies 
inclined their heads in recognition, smiled, and spoke. 
All stopped. 

“Good morning.” 

Nero returned the compliment in like terms, though 
formally icy. 

“It is a matter, I am bound to say and also proud to 
say, that delights me, to meet the friend of these two 
young ladies,” said Mr. Exact Clever Hesperus, looking 
at the two young girls. They forthwith introduced the 
two men. 

“It is indeed very fortunate I met you,” said Clarissa 
to Nero in an ominously reserved voice. 

“Indeed!” frowned Nero, construing her words to 
suit himself, to be sure, and assuming the defiant. “Beg 
pardon, but I have not the honor of knowing the young 
lady with you. It would please me exceeding to meet 
her.” 


268 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Indeed!” sneered Alice. 

“Indeed!” he retored with a suavity that might be 
refined villainy, or mental cruelty, but which was not 
perceived by the innocent Clever Hesperus. 

“O, ah, indeed!” said Clarissa, humoring his attitude. 
“Beg pardon. Mr. Pensive, my friend Miss Moore- 
Greenfield.” 

He bowed gravely: Alice shrieked in cold-blooded 
laughter. 

“With smooth dissimulation, skilled to grace, 

A devil’s purpose with an angel’s face,” 

he denied all previous knowledge of her in the presence 
of a stranger. That he had not denied her at a previous 
meeting signified nothing now. He must not know her 
at this point of time in this city. And a witness to the 
fact that he knew her not would count in his favor. 

“I was saying, when — . It is fortunate I met you, 
I was just saying, Mr. Pensive, and I now repeat the 
fact, — will you join us in a jaunt to the White House?” 
said Clarissa. 

“I would be exceedingly pleased to go with you, and 
enjoy your splendid presence, you know, but a hasty ap- 
pointment in the other direction denies me this glorious 
privilege.” 

“The Chinese were and are adepts in Chesterfieldian 
declinations, — indeed could give Mr. Chesterfield cards 
and spades and then beat him,” said Alice, a swell of 
scorn in her soul gaining expression in her face and eyes 
and manner. She was not ashamed of it. “There was 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


269 


a time, Mr. Ron Cornwallis, when you would have 
jumped at the chance to dance attendance on us.” 

“You speak in terms all Greek to me,” he said rebuk- 
ingly and sternly to her, casting an under look at Clever 
Hesperus. 

“If you were as conversant with Greek as you are with 
the matter you deny all knowledge of, you would com- 
mand a Greek professorship in some of our best Ameri- 
can universities,” said Alice sarcastically. 

“Of course we do not desire you to obtrude your pres- 
ence upon us. No self-respecting gentleman would wish 
to do so impolite a thing. But on the other hand, now, 
we are not consulting your wishes as to whether you de- 
sire us with you. Therefore, if the mountain will not 
come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the mountain,” 
said Clarissa in peremptory tones. And Clever Hes- 
perus began to open his eyes. Something was dawning 
on him. 

“We do not wish to deprive you of the exceeding great 
pleasure of our valuable company, which you profess to 
esteem very highly, and which we have no reason to 
doubt,” said Alice witheringly, bitingly, casting a scorn- 
ful look at him. Clever Hesperus saw that she knew 
him, despite his denial. The denial now seemed to him 
but part of a drama. The conversation opened his ex- 
act eyes to a rotundity not normal. 

“I may say, I presume,” Clever began, “that I am 
quite unable to solve so difficult a social problem, as to 
the fact of previous acquaintance or not; but I may say 
that your acquaintance with the scope of my survey or 
perview has speedily assumed singular proportions.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


270 

“If I were disposed to comment, Mr. Hesperus, (quite 
a classical name), I would say that what you have here 
witnessed has not been of a friendly character, for these 
splendid-looking, gay-smiling, beautiful-figured young 
ladies seem to have some secret design.” And Nero bowed 
as if he had uttered a poser, — a squelcher. 

“My name, — long line of ancestry,” said the man of t’s 
and s’s. 

“Evidently, Nero, your unholy, distressing thought just 
uttered illustrates you,” Clarissa observed with cunning 
force and pith and piquancy. 

“Eve no desire, ladies,” said Nero bowing again, “to 
be one of a party in a street scene.” He stepped forward 
two or three steps. “And I beg you will excuse me from 
further participation in so ungallant conversation. There 
seems to be a set determination to oppose all I say and do, 
and it is not in the laws of gallantry to be a party to it. 
Therefore I beg — ” 

“Goodness me, what a roast!” laughed Clarissa. 

“Certainly you beg,” said Alice, and she hurried and 
caught his arm. Then: “Let’s proceed.” She pressed 
his arm forward. She had no impression now that he 
would even try to kidnap her. He did not resist, for he 
knew that would confirm Clever Hesperus in the absolute 
correctness of the girl’s position, which was the very thing 
he had denied for the sake of the witness of this man. So 
he walked forward with her, and Clarissa Harlow and 
Clever Hesperus demurely followed. Whither — what, 
was the query Nero entertained for a moment. They 
would understand he had forgone his hurried appoint- 
ment, in order to entertain them and enjoy their company. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


271 


So he took them to the Ebbitt hotel, one of the very best 
hotels in the city. 

As they were entering, in the main rotunda they, with- 
out the possibility of evasion, came squarely upon Dean 
McBarron, and out of the office emerged Mith Gulliver. 

“This is not my day,” broke out Nero oracularly, paus- 
ing in indecision. 

“O, my friend,” cried Clarissa Harlow rushing up and 
kissing Dean. Nero crossed moodily behind them. Here 
was the very man he had long been seeking. 

“Sw~eet girl,” said Dean McBarron returning her caress. 
Alice looked on in puzzled wonderment. She beheld a 
man of the splendid medieval type, and the magnetism of 
his sheer presence impressed her. 

Then Clarissa introduced Dean to Alice and Clever 
Hesperus, saying: 

“I think you know Nero Pensive.” 

“Very well.” 

“I know you not,” suddenly denied Nero. But I shall 
be pleased to cultivate your acquaintance.” [Would he!] 

“And here is Mith Gulliver; Dean McBarron,” said 
Clarissa. 

“Yes,” Dean said simply. 

Mith looked like a man in a daze. Something was brew- 
ing, he knew, but what, was the query. 

“I may state for the good of all concerned, that my 
business is not here,” said Nero. Then he went toward 
the door to the street, and the rest followed him, as it 
were. It was deep in Clarissa’s mind that he should not 
escape, slick as he might be, — as he had in Paris. Then 


272 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


he saw a passing face that had good American gold coin 
stamped all over it. 

He proposed to go to the Arlington. No one objected. 

They were seated as a private party in the best room 
of the second story of this hotel, which was in a locality 
where the arteries of trade were not so congested. The 
room was carpeted, plainly furnished, but supplied with 
the comforts and modern appointments of most hostelries 
to-day. The room overlooked the main street that passed, 
and had somewhat of a quiet, excluded air, not uninviting. 
It was little less than the counterpart of the Ebbitt or the 
Willard, where so many legislators and public men were 
wont to congregate. 

Dean McBarron sat near the door, that opened upon 
the leading passage way. Nero Pensive sat at one of the 
front windows where he could look out upon the street, 
should ennui strike him. The rest were seated about in no 
special manner, save that Mith Gulliver seemed to dispose 
himself where he could guard Nero and watch Dean Mc- 
Barron, whom he had now come to suspect of evil designs 
upon Nero, instead of the reverse which was the true case. 

There was evidently an unexpressed tension of feeling 
that had in it the very elements of latent tragedy. But 
that is not an infrequent state of feeling met with in all 
sorts of human combinations and congregations. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


66 


I 


HAVE something to say to you, Nero Pen- 
sive, in the presence of these friends of mine, 
Alice and Dean and Clever,” began Claris- 
sa. “Some of it will not be pleasant to you 
to hear, I imagine.” 

She turned in her chair to him. Her voice was firm 
and cool, without tune or modulation, sterile of all effu- 
sion and affection, an even monotone of stern decision. 
Her round pearl eyes partook somewhat of the dark emo- 
tion that animated them. She had the man coralled at 
last, and now was her opportunity. She continued, after 
a long, deep breath : 

“Some of it you already know, sir, but some of it you 
do not. You shall hear it now.” 

All looked at her, for none had surmised her object, not 
even Dean McBarron who sat at the door like a Cerberus. 
Nero himself was expectant, but prepared to deny every- 
thing. She knew he would, but this was a most impres- 
sive method of informing her friends of her life story. 

The revelation she made is a wonderful one, amazing in 
its success and intensity, surprising in the romantic events 
crowded into so short a space of time, and flattering in 
the world-wide career. She was a marvelous, fascinating 
woman, and some even said she possessed hypnotic powers 
of attraction that brought admirers some of whom were 
undesirable. 


273 


274 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


She was a farmer’s daughter, and romped in the blessed 
air and golden sunshine, and skipped and danced upon the 
hills, and gathered the wild flowers and tore off their pet- 
als and strewed them in multi-colored clouds upon the 
hill winds that bore them away with a wind’s will, and 
lived her beautiful young life in close communion with 
nature and nature’s God. She lived in an old Welsh 
homestead, a two-story brick, on a public road leading into 
Philadelphia. Her father was said to have the “drug 
habit,” even though of good Quaker blood. But his little 
sweet girl was a hearty-hearted girl, and her zealousness 
was forgotten when she cast her round, pearl, winning 
dark-brown eyes upon one. And the spirited little lark 
sang like a mocking-bird, a purity of tone that suggested 
a “natural voice.” 

At fourteen Clarissa was a lovely girl, sweet, pure, 
modest, beautiful, and full of rejoicing promise. Her 
mother tired of a husband, who was not a husband but a 
“drug fiend,” and left him, going into the city, cherish- 
ing extravagant ambitions, it was said, about the 
charming daughter who was lifted by the unwise 
mother into altitudes of levity and deceit. Or was 
it sunken in the pit of levity and deceit. They 
dwelt in Philadelphia, and it was there that a wealthy 
young man, a prosperous corporation lawyer, discovered 
the vocal possibilities of the girl. He was a great friend 
of the family. In fact was a neighbor in the country in 
his childhood, but older than Clarissa. With the mother’s 
consent, probably connivance, he became the generous 
patron of the young warbler. She was sent abroad, where 
she obtained a finished musical education. She sang and 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


275 


earned money. When she returned home her finished 
beauty and lavish expenditures for equipages, clothes, dis- 
play, and general living expenses developed some com- 
ment. Her flirtation with a naval officer gained her 
some sensational notoriety and brought about at length 
the dismissal of the young officer from the service of the 
navy department. Then she became a chorus girl, not of 
the floridora type, however, and danced with Loie Ful- 
ler, and met a man known as the “Beau Brummel of the 
turf,” named Royal Hartline,, and through him caught 
the spirit of the turf and a love for fine horses. She came 
to be an expert horsewoman, owned two noble blooded 
horses, and drove in the streets with a liveried groom. 
She became a heartless coquette and flirted with other 
men, and a great tangle grew up about her. Men fought 
over her, and a suit in court demanded a hundred thou- 
sand dollars restitution to the horseman, Royal Hart- 
line, from another turfman for losses on her account on 
the race course. She bewitched men and made them mad. 
A counter suit for the same amount of money was insti- 
tuted against her, alleging blackmail. These suits re- 
vealed the fact that men were giving her large sums in 
jealous rivalry. 

Meanwhile, the gay, giddy, over-indulged, unwise girl 
lived so extravagantly as to astonish everybody. Her 
mother had married again, though her first and divorced 
husband was still living. However, he was unconcerned 
about her. Clarissa lived for a very short time with her 
mother, but with her deep-seated habit of gayety and 
whirl and song this staid, old-fashioned life was insuffer- 
able. So far her past life had been unlovely and un- 


18 


276 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


fortunate, and stood in somber contrast with the heights 
she climbed later. 

She disappeared from home now, and the Paris boule- 
vards heard of the American songstress named Clarissa 
Harlow. She was credited with dazzling beauty, almost 
superhuman, but dark-visaged, soul-gangrened rumor de- 
clared she had a “past.” However, introductions to her 
were difficult to secure, and she was chaperoned by an 
elderly woman known as the Baroness von Googoo-Eyes, 
who had the entre to good Parisian society, was im- 
mensely rich, and whose deceased husband had been a 
distinguished member of the German diplomatic corps. 
Though the Almanac de Gotha contained no record of 
the Baron von Googoo-Eyes, the Baroness put it easily 
and indifferently aside by saying she was originally an 
F. F. V., members of which had officers in the United 
States army. 

The Baroness and her very beautiful ward occupied a 
house in Rue Hamelin, the rent of which was annually a 
neat little sum. The Baroness presented the famous 
beauty to several in the American colony in the palm 
room of the Hotel Continental, stating that Miss Clarissa 
Harlow was studying music in Paris with the very best 
teachers. The beauty and vivacity of the lovely girl won 
her attention and inquiry, and it was found that she was 
a pupil in music of the world-celebrated teacher of sing- 
ing, Mme. Marchesi. Clarissa wore extravagant cos- 
tumes and was covered with jewels, and though she had 
a marvelous voice she did not devote herself seriously to 
study. The Baroness gave musicales in her home, and 
some men and women of prominent and excellent social 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


277 


standing were present. Then these two women ap- 
peared at receptions held in the home of the American 
Consul General, and Clarissa’s fame as a great beauty 
spread rapidly. She was demure, engaging, cultured, 
and lovely, and her portrait painted by Jobert received 
a place of honor in the salon. It was entitled “The 
American Beauty,” and Paris studied it enraptured and 
full of comment, and then sought an introduction to the 
original, — a quasi triumph. She had apartments for a 
time in the Elyses Palace hotel, and while there the Shah 
of Persia arrived. He roamed through the corridors, and 
one day met Clarissa. Where she went the Shah, now 
madly in love, went, figuratively at her heels. He of- 
fered her jewels in lavish profusion, asking her to be- 
come his first Sultana in Persia. She played the heart- 
less coquette with him, accepted his rope of pearls, and 
in the end forsook him. He was not her “style.” But 
the fact of his infatuation increased her general repute. 

She had next for escort in the fashionable places of 
Paris, Baron de Punster, who met her through M. Job- 
ert. This appearance in public with the Baron increased 
her prestige and social eclat, and she finally promised him 
her hand in marriage. 

There is never an up but there is a down. Here 
came the collapse of her social bubble, which had been 
a mild form of the tulip craze. Humanity and sentiments 
go in gangs. A dispatch from America crept into the 
Paris papers at this point in the vivid romance, stating 
that Harlow was not the patronymic of a distinguished 
American family, and that “La Belle Americaine” was 
but a chorus girl with an interesting past. This was a 


278 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


disinterested meddling for the defense of the glory of the 
aristocracy. It was a sensation indeed, and Paris gasped 
and stared. And then no one could be found who had 
ever worshipped at her shrine, or received her in his home, 
or enjoyed her musical entertainments in the Rue 
Hamelin. Then the “society” of Paris began to laugh 
bravely and relate strange incidents about the girl and 
her chaperone. Most noble “society,” that’s right, — 
keep your own skirts clean, whatever becomes of the 
“other fellow!” 

But Clarissa Harlow was not suppressed. Paris was 
not the whole earth. She simply stepped from the formal 
receptions in the world of high social standing into anoth- 
er sphere in life, where “glory waited her.” She closed the 
house in Rue Hamelin. Her supply of money seemed in- 
exhaustible. She established herself in Blase castle, an 
estate at Etretat, owned previously by an American im- 
pressario, of whom she purchased it for a large sum of 
cash, and lived there in great state with the Baroness. She 
entered her fine blooded horses in the shows of France and 
Germany, where she won many blue ribbons and was 
hailed as one of the most expert women whips in Europe. 
At length she engaged, as a pleasing amusement and satis- 
fying relief to the dead monotony that had begun some- 
times to come, with this American impressario to star in 
opera. In Milan, in Vienna, in Rome, in Naples, in Mad- 
rid, and even in St. Petersburg and Constantinople her 
vocal dramatic talent captured her wondering audiences. 

It was now that she met Earl Nero Pensive, and he 
became her slave and gallant, and was so persistent and 
obedient in his attentions that she finally, “to get rid of 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


279 


him,” agreed to marry the handsome, devoted Englishman. 
She said she could not endure this English Earl to make 
a fool of himself any longer. Then she married him. On 
his part he purposed the marriage to be a pretended af- 
fair. But Clarissa had seen too much of life and its vag- 
aries and fallacies not to profit by her observations, and so 
she secretly saw to it that the ceremony should be legal 
and witnessed by proper legal papers. 

When Clarissa narrated this core fact, the interest and 
attention of all being riveted upon her for this frank, mar- 
velous, self-condemnatory confession, Nero straightened 
up and took genuine interest for the first time. He looked 
at her and silent bewilderment danced from wide-open, 
astonished eyes. She spurned his frowns. He was not as 
much to her now as he once was. He was nobody but 
Nero. 

“You lie!” he yelled. 

“Ucko! you man of titular gentility,” she calmly inter- 
posed in scathing rebuke. “This truth is what I wanted 
to tell you, and is what denial will not rub out. Th$ rec- 
ord in France is proof, and your attitude alters no written 
fact.” She was not in the least perturbed by his domineer- 
ing insolence. There was a momentary sensation among 
the rest, and every one’s eyes expressed it. 

“Ah-ha!” cried Alice, and her “ha” would have of- 
fended the Sweet Singer of Israel, “A bigamist!” 

The situation deepened. Nero grew uneasy. Mith 
Gulliver and Dean McBarron struck attitudes of utter as- 
tonishment. Nero’s intensity confessed the truth of Clar- 
issa’s story,— it touched, and the uncomplimentary, unwel- 


28 o 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


come, ugly, openly condemned faults brought to light al- 
ways hurt. The wounded bird flutters. 

She had not shielded herself. She told a stirring, start- 
ling tale of personal activity, not always properly directed, 
and never righteously, therefore never wisely, by parental 
and friendly counsel and example. 

Nero bounded to his feet, moved to extravagant pas- 
sion (not “emotional insanity”), and cried furiously: 

“A conspiracy! A conspiracy! All of you have com- 
bined in it, understand it, and have sought this opportun- 
ity to overthrow me, and for no good reason on earth. I 
have been entrapped in this building for this very diaboli- 
cal purpose.” 

“I emphatically deny the allegation,” firmly and 
promptly interposed Dean McBarron. He was a strong 
athlete, six feet tall, and of splendid figure. An Apollo in 
person, face, and spirit, black eyes and square chin, he was 
a man whom the ladies admired. 

“A sweeping and impossible charge; can’t be proved, 
you must permit me to say,” said Clever Hesperus, coming 
as near a peremptory denial as was possible for him before 
ladies. 

There was an unuttered feud between Dean and Nero, 
and they hated each other with royal, loyal hatred, though 
never a word before this had passed directly between them. 

Alice with wide eyes was comprehending more clearly 
this great life story, and she sat mum, gazing, listening, 
alarmed. Even Mith was awakening to the truth that he 
had been ignorant of much of his patron’s past record, 
and what hitherto had seemed beclouded with mystery was 
clearing away. Clever Hesperus was apparently as- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


281 

tounded into primeval silence, though he was never less 
meditative in his life. Nero and Clarissa both felt a near 
climax, but she for one had no desire to escape it. On the 
other hand she consented to herself that some sudden 
mighty revolution would clarify, right, and set things in 
order again. 

When Dean promptly answered Nero, all were instan- 
taneously moved as by a battery shocking all in a continu- 
ous circle. Clarissa looked restrainingly at Dean and con- 
tinued to Nero: 

“As I said, we were legally married in Paris, and the 
proofs of that fact are not wanting. I was then starring 
in opera. After marriage my operatic life went on as be- 
fore, in fulfillment of my contract. My new hubby, pro- 
fessing smooth infatuation for me, his new wife, whom he 
believed was not his wife, seemed wholly devoted and 
bound up in the new relationship. I felt it was too fer- 
vent to keep. 

“Now suddenly a sweet new face, with infinitely much 
more money than I had, appealed to him and he left me, 
deserted his wife whom he thought he had skillfully 
‘worked’ or deceived, and left no polite note to explain his 
genteel conduct. But I had not been deceived. He fol- 
lowed her to London. You all know the glad -hearted, 
gold-hearted, noble, sweet, pure, intelligent girl, Miss 
Mina Wadsworth — ” 

Every one seemed to gasp in utter astonishment, and sit 
up straighter, and wonder how far the tragic tale was 
going. Nero thundered his flashing, angry eyes at her, 
and would have stricken her down had he dared. He 
leaped to his feet, reconsidered, and resumed his seat. His 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


282 

action did not pass unnoticed, and Clarissa understood it 
better than any other one there. 

“I said Miss Mina Wadsworth. She is the one that 
this unstable Reuben, the inconstant ‘Earl/ this pink of 
politeness, — in some things, not in his word which is ab- 
solutely worthless, — followed to London, where he met 
her several times before she returneed to America with her 
father. As soon as he could ‘raise the wind/ he plunged 
into the Atlantic billows to find her on the other side — 
this financial derelict did. Here he has repeatedly insisted 
on her marriage to him, and he knows his very touch 
would contaminate the girl. For a time she wore a bril- 
liant diamond ring, and rumor had it that they were en- 
gaged. 

“I carried out my operatic contract, and in London met 
Dean McBarron, he whom you see here. I came to this 
country expressly to do what I am doing this very minute, 
and you may know whether the uncertainty made certain 
is a pleasure to me or not. I’m inclined to suspect that 
Nero here is not as happy over it as I am. Exposure is 
the very essence of mental torture. I have exposed this 
man,” pointing dramatically at Nero. “And I shall do 
it yet more effectually than I have here. I’m not through 
with him. He shall know the fury of a wife repudiated. 
I despise the mustard-seed-souled villain. When I have 
finished with him, he will be as badly shriveled up as She 
was in the play. I’m not ‘gossiping through my hat/ nor 
threatening, nor romancing because I am mad, — that is 
the word common folks use, — nor persecuting him out of 
revenge; but simply informing him of some results he set 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 283 

in motion that are yet to be. He will know more of me 
yet. I know as much of him as I want to know.” 

She paused. Collected. 

“All can see that you and your Dean McBarron, as 
you call him, have together concocted a very plausible 
story against me. The main feature about it is that it 
is absolutely false, false in toto, false as Satan, false 
in every word and jot and tittle, false from first to 
last, false all through and in every fibre and in bone and 
marrow, false and self-condemning. In the first place, 
such a thing for me to do is impossible. Your story is 
impeachable by probabilities. Overshadowing your sordid 
story about me is the questionable life story of this con- 
spiring woman. Her confession reveals her.” 

“And you too,” she cried. 

“I proclaim it an infamous conspiracy, a deep-laid 
blackmailing plot, a genuine hold-up game, a stand-and- 
deliver affair, and I want all these people to witness my 
strong characterization of it, here where it first comes to 
my attention.” He looked too perturbed to mingle in 
his looks symptoms of guilt sufficiently pronounced to be 
visible. 

“As an American I say that he who accuses another 
of conspiracy and of attempting blackmail must be ready 
to back up his assertions with proof, or he may make the 
intimate acquaintance of jail walls. Moreover, asser- 
tions like hearsay evidence are valueless before the law. 
Facts are what the law demands. Notice that I speak 
of the law.” In uttering this Dean was not excited. He 
was the logical one not to be disturbed by mere words. 

“The sequel to this little private conference, all must 


284 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


see, will demonstrate the truth of what I have said,” de- 
clared Nero in the manner of a cowed bravado, without 
due restraint within the limits of truth. 

“Of what I have said, yes,” asserted Clarissa in mock 
tones of suavity. 

“I presume,” in a sort of judicial manner, “that no 
one thinks of appealing to the law in the first instance 
to settle our differences. But be it understood, once for 
all, that my friend, Clarissa Harlow, shall not be misrep- 
resented or imposed upon with impunity by any one, I 
care not who he is. As for myself I can always take care 
of No. 1.” 

“Of course you outnumber me here, and so all sorts 
of statements ‘go,’ but I shall defend my honor here or 
anywhere,” said Nero. 

“Bravo!” shrieked Alice. 

“Your honor, — what do you call honor? Other folks 
have a different name for that in you you suppose to be 
honor. In you it is a very shoddy quality. What is 
honor in your view? Your honor needs no defense — you 
have none.” Clarissa was bitter. She can not be ex- 
cused for the unjustifiable taunt in her tone of voice and 
manner of expression. And the sneering laugh with 
which she accompanied the taunt revealed an ugly side 
of this much-abused girl, but she had put herself volun- 
tarily in the way of harsh abuse socially. The blame for 
all social criticism and overthrow attaches largely to her- 
self, whether through ignorance or selfish choosing or 
egotistic ambition. 

“As I said, you will not understand me, for you do 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


28s 


not want to, and from ignorance there is no appeal,” said 
Nero with melancholy severity. 

“Honor! You have none to defend,” said Clarissa 
savagely. “And as the Swiss soldier said to the French 
soldier, ‘I suppose every one fights for that which he has 
the least of and needs most.’ Honor is least in those who 
profess the loudest about it.” 

“Is it worth the candle,” interposed Dean as a pre- 
caution and restraint upon Clarissa. She merely looked 
steadily at him a long moment, as it seemed, for answer. 
There was pause. 

“I am, I must say to be candid, putting it as mildly as 
the limit allows, not a little disconcerted by all I have 
heard and seen here now,” said the methodical, mathe- 
matical, torturingly accurate Clever Hesperus in his 
usual, unemotional tone of voice. 

“I think Clarissa,” said Alice as a friend and well- 
wisher, “has gone through much and suffered much.” 

“Thanks, my dear Alice. No words can tell the half. 
You have had nothing of the record of my thoughts and 
feelings and tears all along in my life. They are too 
sacred to lay bare to public inspection.” 

“I think the beginning of the explanation of it all, and 
the beginning of the end is at hand for you, Clarissa,” 
said Dean in conservative, consolatory tones. For 
Clarissa, at the long tension seemed so wrought up 
that tears were imminent. She had at last begun to mani- 
fest agitation and neurotic conditions. Yet she had 
herself in obedience to the occasion. 

“I think,” dear Earl, we might reasonably, I say, and 
with profit adjourn this very emotional meeting, — I say. 


286 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Some declare, you know, that a high strain of emotion 
is satisfaction, so I think we had better adjourn this 
meeting,” said Mith Gulliver, who was smart enough 
to scent trouble immediate. He thought a protraction of 
the discussion meant worse and worse, and now that it 
had come naturally to an end was the time to put the 
motion to adjourn. Longer continued it would dwindle 
still further into a heart-stabbing, low-down, high- 
wrought wrangle, from which flow no benefits, no good 
to any one, and which remedies nothing. 

The two men were permitted to pass out. The others 
passed a few words in hasty commentary upon the scene, 
and then also departed. None about the hotel, none in 
Washington knew aught of what has just been related. 

It is a singular fact that Nero did not execute his 
threat to kill Dean McBarron on sight.” Dean declared 
that bluff did not “work.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


N OT long after the recital of the story of 
Clarissa Harlow, Prof. P. Thomas Nel- 
son, Mina, Peter Wilkins, and Ex-Senator 
Wadsworth were in a motor car skim- 
ming along the highway toward Brand- 
enburg. It was an outing with no special object, save that 
which comes from fresh air and sunshine and good cheer. 
An hour later the Professor bade them good-by, set out 
for New York, and the following day took passage for 
England with the two other members of the special mone- 
tary commission. 

Mina had put off her diamond ring, the gift of her fath- 
er, the very time that Clarissa Harlow twitted her about 
it as an engagement ring. It was a misleading symbol just 
now. 

Mina, her father, and Peter were at the station in 
Washington when the Professor departed. He was an 
impressive man, and his intelligence and activity of mind 
seemed written and stamped all over his intellectual face. 
His brow was broad and high and full, his hair black and 
smoothed away, his eye quick and winning, his voice clear, 
full, firm, and spectators beheld a man with the proud 
stamp of a divine animus within. It was an illustrious 
mark of distinction, such as human classification and so- 
cial rating can not give. And as he approached Mina in 
well-fitting suit and becoming hat, just preceding his en- 
287 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


try into the waiting coach, she was impressed that he was 
indeed a great man, and yet not isolated by greatness; and 
it suddenly “came to her” that his absence abroad for in- 
definite time would take out of her something and leave 
a blank. In a word she would miss him grievously and 
be lonesome. And he had not pressed from her the defi- 
nite answer that lay mute at that moment in her secret 
heart. He came up with a frank smile. They were a lit- 
tle apart from the rest. Peter Wilkins was saying some- 
thing amusing and provoking the Ex-Senator to hearty 
laughter. 

“I should be rejoiced, if you and your parents were go- 
ing across with me,” he said. 

“It is possible, as I said before, that we will be over 
there before your return,” she answered by an honest 
smile that extended to her eyes. 

“And I may write and cable you?” 

“You have carte blanche.” 

“You scarcely realize how much pleasure you give one 
who is departing.” 

“Sometimes the one who remains behind is the most 
lonely,” she said, fully realizing what she said, but saying 
it in spite of herself, as if moved by fate. He looked 
quickly at her, but her eyes were innocently resting on her 
father’s manly face to their right. Then the fate of doubt 
shaped his words: 

“That is to be determined by circumstances.” 

“The fates have ordered you a busy and fortunate life 
abroad,” she said gently, “and you will no doubt see 
many eminent and important people.” 

“No doubt the hours will be filled, and time may not 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


289 


seem to languish and repine, but friends and strangers 
are different, you know full well, and an idle hour can’t 
be so well filled in with strangers as with our intimate 
friends.” It was in his mouth to declare her chief 
among his “intimate friends,” but wanted courage. 

“I wish you a bon voyage, success in your work, and 
a speedy return to your native heath and intimate, well- 
wishing friends.” 

“Indeed it is kind of you to say so much, and I’m 
sure your kind words will be leaven to many dull, hard, 
heavy hours, busy as I may be.” 

“I see Olive Pendell coming. She is returning home 
to New York. You will fortunately have the company 
of Olive and her noble mother. For a few days they 
have been visiting Mrs. Pendell’s sister, wife of a Con- 
gressman here.” 

Olive and her mother and Mrs. Wadsworth hurried 
up, greeted all, and then all joined in a half jesting, half 
laughing, general conversation. Peter Wilkins was as 
ever the clown of the talk, and his words and manners 
raised laughter above the din around. 

“We are deporting our friend, the enemy, to his mother 
country, where we hope he will be reformed, refitted, re- 
turned to us in proper shape and proportions and with 
the proper heraldic emblems, or tags, upon him, lest he 
stray, be lost, or stolen.” 

The allusion to titles and titular distinctions provoked 
Mina to gurling laughter, almost boisterous. Olive and 
her mother joined Mina, primarily in sympathy and sec- 
ondarily at the mirth-provoking facial contortions of the 


290 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


commedian. To see him, one was led to think his utter- 
ance rent him in twain. 

“It will delight us to have you with us in our journey,” 
said Mrs. Pendell. 

“And I deem it fortunate that you are going now,” 
said the Professor in inviting tones and terms. 

“Lovely that you can all go together,” said Mrs. Wads- 
worth. 

“We are sending the Professor abroad, as Mr. Peter 
Wilkins has said, and we hope, — indeed know, — his mis- 
sion for the government will result to his honor and 
the great good of the whole American people,” said ex- 
Senator Wadsworth. 

“A good man for any consular, diplomatic, or investi- 
gating service,” said Peter in emendation of his previous 
remark. 

“We may congratulate you on your appointment to so 
worthy and significant matter,” said Olive, looking in- 
tently on him. She was in doubt about the appositeness 
of her remarks, and looked to see. 

“I always have faith in the words and counsel of my 
friends,” said Prof. P. Thomas Nelson seriously, “but an 
enemy may tell the truth on the other side of the matter, 
for everybody like every question, story, recorded his- 
torical fact, or quarrel, has two sides. A written his- 
torical fact is one man’s statement, and may differ as does 
the testimony of litigants in court. But you, my best 
friends, always tell the truth.” He laughed. He was 
not puffed up. 

“You should not intimate there is another side to our 
words, Professor,” said Peter. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


291 


“Why not?” 

“Now, why not!” interrupted Peter. 

“Why not? I do not stumble for an instant as to the 
truth of what you say. It flatters me, and hence must 
be true, you know. But there is always the possibility 
of somebody else saying a different thing, giving the other 
side.” The Professor smiled in proof of his sanity and 
sincerity. 

“Well, we shall never doubt you,” said Mina, half 
blushing. 

“I never doubt you, but I do doubt myself,” said the 
Professor. 

“A Daniel! A Daniel! A nice distinction. We ac- 
cept it all now,” said Peter perfectly recalcitrant. 

“You are personal,” said Mrs. Wadsworth coming to 
the Professor’s aid. 

“A proper time to be,” said Peter. 

Then the engine bell rang three taps, like ember bells, 
the conductor came up and suggested that they enter the 
coach, good-bys were quickly said, hurried shakes of 
hands, Mina kissed Olive and her mother in tender adieu, 
and Mrs. Wadsworth was the last to grasp the Profes- 
sor’s hand, except her daughter. The Professor lingered 
perceptibly over Mina’s hand, clasped it a little hard- 
er, held it closely a little longer, and then without 
a word dropped it, entered the coach, and sat in the re- 
versed seat with Mrs. and Miss Pendell. 

“And he had said no more!” Mina reflected as she 
heard the train depart. 

And Nero Pensive now had the whole, cleared op- 


19 


292 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


portunity to captivate and capture the great heiress. 
What a great find she was. 

The Professor was departing abroad with no promise 
from her, except that he might write all he wished, and 
that she possibly might miss him, — not absolutely sure of 
that. Undeclared love is a mystery, a torture, an in- 
fidelity! Possibly she might be married before his return. 
She said she would probably be in Europe before he re- 
turned, and that might mean as the wife of a titled lord. 
It could mean that. There was no reason he knew why 
it shouldn’t. And why might he not write her his whole 
heart secret. He would. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


T HE next day, soft and gentle after the mild 
rain the night previous, was a splendid time 
for automobiling, and Nero Pensive had 
arranged to ride with Mina. She was real 
sorry Olive Pendell had gone home, but 
Mrs. Wadsworth, in the excellency of her motherly 
spirit, said she would accompany her. She promised to 
sit with Mina, who proposed to drive the car, and thus 
oblige Nero Pensive to occupy a rear seat alone. In the 
last minute, luckily, unluckily, Clarissa and Alice passed 
by, and paused to say they were just walking to the 
White House for a breath of release and recreation and 
ozone, — not the liquid kind. Why — they would be ex- 
tremely delighted to ride with them. 

Again Nero was defeated, — worse, a Sedan! The 
Erinnyes seemed to have, in some inexplicable manner, 
turned the favor of his lares et penates to naught, since 
his advent in America. But, was it Timour that re- 
ceived the lesson of achievement from the ant? Then he 
would know no defeat. This time, — then the next time. 
There was surely another time ; this time was not final. 
Nature did not arrange to focus all things in one final 
mighty effort, and then cease. Again, — again, — and still 
again ! The Professor was now absent, and he would be 
free to continue, accentuate, accumulate his impressions 
and designs upon her, without the interference of another, 
293 


294 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


who would wofully confuse, and even erase, each last 
soul impression he should make upon her clean, white, 
unsuspecting heart, clean as Lock’s sheet of white paper. 

So mother and daughter rode in front and the two 
girls, his bitterest enemies, in the seat with him. He 
could not back out. They did not object to this arrange- 
ment, after each had exchanged in secret a wink with the 
other. He dare not refuse to go, for that would give 
them the very opportunity they sought to reveal him to 
Mina. He knew her mind so far had not been poisoned 
by them. And moreover, it would confirm their story. 
It would require all the “sweetness and love and light” 
that Arnold talked about to go now, but since it was a 
“condition and not a theory that confronted him” it re- 
mained only for him to do it. He must deceive Clarissa 
and Alice as to his feelings, win them with charming, 
medieval-like gallantry, and intercept and prevent any 
tales out of school. 

They swept through the air all over the surrounding 
country, the rush of the quivering, jolting machine inter- 
fering with protracted conversation. And Mina was, by 
her responsibility at the steering-wheel, deprived of par- 
ticipation in the broken talk. 

Alice told the story of a husband’s bad blunder over 
the “phone.” When he returned home in the evening, 
his wife met him with lugubrious tones, saying the hired 
girl had given notice to quit according to the union con- 
tract. The husband asked for the reason. The wife told 
him that the girl said he had spoken to her in a brutal 
manner over the telephone. Then he explained with 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


295 


brutal frankness that he thought he was speaking to his 
wife. 

Clarissa matched it by the answer to the query about 
the author’s new typewriter. He said she was not new ; was 
second hand, — a widow. 

Nero laughed, thinking of nothing else he could do. 
They were not side-splitting, button-bursting stories, but 
they had a dagger in them for him. 

Clarissa was obliged to sit cramped next to him. Alice 
had such a horror of the fellow she could not be induced 
to sit near him. The fear fairly burnt in her eccentric 
soul. He had endeavored to kidnap her. This man, the 
Ron Cornwallis of a mad escapade not long ago, seemed 
enveloped in an atmosphere that she imagined pervaded 
pandemonium or purgatory. 

Then, in the exchange and interchange of the mental 
flashes, the result of the natural function of the brain, 
which always thinks and feels, whether expressed or de- 
fined in terms or not, it flashed upon Clarissa to quote an 
idea from “La Vie Parisienne.” It was a modern French 
view of before and after marriage, and was illustrated. 
Before marriage the man, sitting on the sofa with his 
truelove, is large, all-powerful, immense, superior. His 
blushing, meek, humble, frail fiancee is a squeaking little 
mousie on the opposite corner of the sofa. But after 
the wedding the conditions are reversed. The new hubby 
is diminutive, small, smaller, smallest, infinitesimally 
small, and the great big new bride on the other end of the 
sofa is absolute queen. In reciting this she modulated her 
voice, always sweetly musical, like a tune, so sweet and 
gurgling. And in saying this of her present method of 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


speech, there is still something left unsaid. She was 
sarcastically lovely in silvery intonation, and she garnished 
her words with a tantalizing smile. She did not de- 
mand a responsive sentiment, but she straightened out a 
fold of her modish walking suit. Alice looked at her, and 
better understood the psychic cruelty of her speech and 
manner. 

She managed to make the whole trip most villainously 
uncomfortable for him, though he professed by word and 
laughter to be “enjoying it hugely.” 

They had spent the better part of the afternoon whirl- 
ing over the country round about the City of Magnificent 
Distances, and after all nothing was furthered in the 
plans of Nero. And happily nothing had been disclosed 
to his disadvantage. For this he felt a sort of stupefied 
satisfaction ; and as for the rest -he would disclaim all 
previous knowledge of these girls and maintain that it is 
a crass conspiracy to blackmail him. 

They arrived in the city as the street gas lights were 
being lighted and the arc lights were being turned on. 
The chef had a bountiful, dinner prepared, and had 
waited some time. With becoming appetites they sat 
to table like charming friends. And neither Mina nor 
Mrs. Wadsworth knew they were not the best of friends. 
Clarissa all this time was still known to them as Miss 
I. Single. 

Clarissa was a woman, however, in whom desperation 
had dawned, out of the bitterness and mistakes of her 
past. She had reached the point where she suffered. 
None should escape who had harmed her. But her 
friends forever! 


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297 


After all had eaten heartily, in response to the calls of 
the afternoon outing, Clarissa, a strange light born of 
desperation in her eyes, a voice that was calm and deep 
and musical, an air that would dare and die, turned to 
Nero Pensive, the only man at the table, and said: 

“I very much dislike masquerades and masks.” 

He looked up sharply. Instinct told him this meant 
something. Mina comprehended nothing but that her 
words were enigmatical. Mrs. Wadsworth scarcely 
looked up. Alice was intensely alert. “I now here pur- 
pose to pull the domino off my friend ‘Earl’ Nero Pen- 
sive’s face and expose him in the game he is putting up.” 

Mina and her mother looked in confusion. What could 
it be! The girl spoke as if she were going to make a 
scene. And they abominated scenes. Nero compre- 
hended. He would forestall her. 

“I have known this woman only since I came to this 
city, never before. She is no friend of mine. She is 
bent on defaming me for money. Let me say, much as 
I regret it, that this is not her first attempt. I shall claim 
the protection of the court, and meanwhile content myself 
by declaring my complete innocence.” 

“We shall see,” Clarissa went on in a very damaging, 
matter-of-fact, declarative manner. “Telephones and 
telegraphs bring within immediate reach every land un- 
der the sun, and statements can be verified. He married 
me in Paris, and thought he had arranged a mere ruse 
marriage. But I countered that, and we were married 
legally, though he knew it not then ; and are to-day by 
law husband and wife. I’m sure you will recall, Miss 


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Wadsworth, when he left me in Paris, playing opera on 
the stage.” 

“I now for the first time have placed you,” said Mina 
in surprise. “All along I thought I had knowm you be- 
fore. Your changed name disguised you.” The look of 
marvel and astonishment on her mother’s face is easier 
imagined than depicted. The altered name had an ugly 
look. But it was necessary in order to steal upon Nero; 
otherwise he would shun the name he knew. 

“I never knew this woman previous to my coming to 
this city,” he said now white, now red, now quivering 
with anger. Mina looked appalled. She was disposed 
to credit him. Upon general principles his word was as 
credible as hers. But what an awful affair this was! 
What was not this Clarissa Harlow guilty of! Mrs. 
Wadsworth’s first impression was that they had harbored 
a snake in their home. She was not the woman she al- 
lowed her conduct to profess her to be. She was a 
masque herself. And she actually looked stern and 
frowned at her. The publicity of this unsavory story 
would necessarily couple them with it in no pleasant 
fashion, one might be sure. Should it produce a rowen — 

“And since he came to this country, he married my 
friend, Alice Moore-Greenfield in New York City, and 
that is more easily verifiable, if you think I am making 
reckless accusations.” 

“I never knew them before I met them in this city, and 
here these characterless things thrust their infamous pres- 
ence on me nolens volens.” 

“It is true he married me on a ‘lark,’ under the as- 
sumed name of Ron Cornwallis, in New York. I have 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


299 


much proof that this is Ron Cornwallis, — the Justice of 
the Peace and some of my best friends. Indeed when I 
came here I knew no other name for him. And I can’t 
even now testify of my own knowledge what his real 
name is.” Alice spoke in considerable agitation and 
angry excitement. 

“I always quote Scripture when I’m mad,” he said, a 
classically impurturbable smile coiling like a venomous 
serpent on his lips. “And I say now, ‘depart from me 
into everlasting fire; I never knew you.’ You know this, 
too, better than anybody,” appealing directly to her, “that 
you first met me in this city at the station on my first 
arrival.” 

“First met you there in this city — yes. That is not 
the point material to this issue. The issue is that you 
and I were married in New York by a civil magistrate, 
and that I left you at once, leaving you alone on the steps 
of the office of the Justice of the Peace. Then, the spirit 
that prompted my wild vagary had expended itself, and so 
I would no more of you, an entire stranger.” Alice had 
spoken the entire truth, though Mina and her mother 
were not without doubts. Alice was very nervous. 

“Mrs. Wadsworth and Miss Wadsworth,” he began, 
turning to them a face radiant with well-trained smiles, 
“I deplore this dreadful scene here in your lovely home, 
where peace long was wont to dwell undisturbed. This 
infamous assault on my pure character is not settled ; but 
here is not the place to settle it. I shall unequivocally 
demonstrate to you that I never knew these upstart wo- 
men; that they are trumping up this stuff for the pur- 


300 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


pose of blackmailing me; and that it is one of the most 
unholy conspiracies ever concocted.” 

“We are truly sorry that you people should differ in 
the manner you do,” said Mrs. Wadsworth with acute 
sadness of tone. 

“These young ladies were my associates, mere acquaint- 
ances first formed a week or ten days ago at Atlantic 
City, and I must say I was charmed with their engaging 
vivacity, and candid manners, and lovely personality,” 
said Mina directing her remarks specially at them, 
prompted by a sense of self-defense. It was a very dis- 
creditable affair, to say the very least, in which she was 
but incidentally concerned, and so no apology was due 
from her, she knew. 

“Mrs. Wadsworth, we are not concealing anything 
from you,” said Clarissa. “Nor are we imposing upon 
you or deceiving you for an unworthy end, or for any 
end for that matter. And we have sacrificed ourselves, 
though we were not obliged to confess and criminate our- 
selves. But I have proposed, for the sake of the truth 
and to save your pure, sweet girl, to let you know who 
this man is, his purpose in deceiving you and your daugh- 
ter, and to prove to you the truth of what I am saying. 
I am honest with you, whatever he is. He has a mark 
stamped on his left arm. He will not show it now. How 
do I know this mark is there, if I never saw him before 
we met in this city.” 

“I need not now convict her out of her own mouth 
by showing an arm without a spot or blemsih upon it. 
This is her ruse to support her false words.” 

“It is an unpleasant affair to me, and I can easily see 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


301 


it is passion-tense with you,” said Mrs. Wadsworth in 
placating tones. 

“I had learned to ‘like’ you girls exceedingly, and I’m 
truly sorry for all this,” said Mina briefly, kindly. 

“As to that, this is but a result of what was to come,” 
said Clarissa in a manner that exhibited an implacable 
spirit toward Nero, and that said more in its essence to 
prove her position than her words; and also showed that 
this feud was not of recent contrivance. “We were at 
the watering place, because that was a part of the plan to 
trap this ‘Earl.’ Miss Wadsworth will recall that I 
catechised her there about him, and alluded to her dia- 
mond ring and an engagement. I am sorry that your 
peaceful home, your lovely spirited domestic retreat, has 
become the scene of any portion of this ugly life drama, 
which has at least one act and several scenes more before 
it is ended.” 

“You see in this statement, Mrs. Wadsworth, what I 
have to contend with from these two adventuresses,” he 
said turning abstractly his silver spoon end over end on 
the immaculate table linen. Once it fell over and jangled 
upon the china, as if it had caught the spirit of the mo- 
ment and had begun to “raise a fuss” on its own behalf 
and assault the plate and quarrel loudly. Mrs. Wads- 
worth did not answer him. Instead, she patted the nap- 
kin twice. He stood as little exonerated in her mind as 
the two young ladies did, and Mina viewed the unseemly, 
improper affair with a real sense of shame and regret. 
She remembered what her father said in Paris about titled 
young men. And then, too, there was always an inexplic- 
able inner sense opposing him. He now sank lower in her 
opinion. 


3^2 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“I can not suggest anything to you,” said Mrs. Wads- 
worth at length, brushing a crumb from the linen. “I 
indeed regret the unfortunate, inconsiderate affair for 
your sakes.” 

“Pray do not let this weary or worry you, my dear 
Mrs. Wadsworth,” said Nero with modulated palaver 
and an assumed superiority to it all and therefore a right 
to assure and comfort these distressed mother and daugh- 
ter. “I promise you shall never hear more of it. But I 
also promise to clear myself of it all, and you shall know 
it.” 

“He called you ‘my dear Mrs. Wadsworth!’ Well 
;aid !” cried Clarissa in assumed pleasantry. 

“I shall now retire and end this distressing, shameful 
quarrel, none of which is by my wish,” said he. 

“No, of course not. Not your wish! But your ac- 
cursed deeds made it possible,” Clarissa sneered. 

“Go, bigamist!” cried Alice after him as he bowed out 
of the dining-room. 

Mina as host felt it a civil duty to attend him out of 
the house. In the large drawing-room, when alone, he 
turned and appealed to her, a well-wrought wrinkle of 
distress on his low brow, and with consummate effront- 
ery, or daring perhaps, to be literally just to him, he 
seized her hand, begging her: 

“O, Miss Wadsworth, the scandal and shame and 
dishonor of this moment is the bane of my life, and I 
shall never recover from the great shock of the disgrace. 
Pray, Miss Wadsworth, do not render a verdict on the 
testimony of the one side only. Courts never do. There 
are two sides to every case, you well know. This is a 
proposition too simple to state. I shall not trouble you 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


303 


here now with my side, and mine is the true version, I 
assure you ; but at your pleasure, — let me tell you the 
facts at your pleasure. Name your hour.” His eyes, 
with that uncertain hue of purple mingling in the gray 
sometimes seen in them, rested on her without reserve, 
not in appeal but in sauguine deliberation watching the 
effect of his false words, 

"I will notify you when.” 

“It is a pure, genuine case of blackmail. But I will 
say no more now.” And with wise reticence in his 
dilemma he departed. His last act was to accord her the 
smile civil. 

She returned to the dinning-room where the painful ex- 
planation still went on. There were animated repeti- 
tions of the story of this man, and not a little reprobation 
interlarded with it. Mina sat down to listen and to 
think. Perhaps the true spirit of the story would arise 
out of the things she might hear. And so she sat quietly, 
almost reticently, at an end of the table. 

Mrs. Wadsworth, a true Christian woman, moved 
with a spirit of helpfulness and well doing, considered the 
problem of these two harum-scarum girls. On the side 
of social relationship, it were best to cast out these way- 
ward creatures and let them drift. While she listened 
something definite came out of the formless void. There 
is something great and good in them, as there is in every- 
body, opportunity given, and therefore as a Christian she 
must not only set herself to the work but actually save 
them. They can be saved, as can all persons, opportunity 
given. Therefore she can not dismiss them from her 
home. The good can not be harmed by accretion but by 
concretion. 


304 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


They are misguided women, and needed above all 
things the shelter of a shutter, and the protection of an 
arm. Condemnation would not give them these things. 
That was not Christs’ method with the Magdalenes. 
The belief she entertained was that these girls were not law- 
less and guilty, but wild and uncontrolled, needing re- 
construction less than warm love. There was every hope 
for them. They had simply become hardened and glazed 
in resisting opposition. Perpetual opposition is perpetual 
condemnation. Abuse is a failure as a method of reforma- 
tion. 

In this day of divorces, Mrs. Wadsworth reflected in 
substance, there is some cause for marital unhappiness. 
Could these girls have helped being frivolous-minded in 
love-making. It’s possible for every one to love and be 
loved correctly. Or is it fate? The lightness of the 
very inception of love attachments and courting associa- 
tions is a chief cause of divorces. The untaught young, 
obeying impulse, don’t understand the great God-design 
of love, — the perpetuity of the race. Love is one — no, 
is the — strongest passion or impulse given to man, next 
to the desire to eat which preserves life. And it is a di- 
vine decree, this union of the sexes. But disregarding all, 
they meet, flirt, smile, marry, and repent at leisure in 
sackcloth and ashes. In America, the wife has a larger 
place in life, than she does in England, where she by cus- 
tom is under the dominance of her husband. 

“These girls,” she decided, “must find a cordial wel- 
come in my home, that is all. They need a mother’s 
heart over them, and I must supply that place.” 

They arose from the table. 


CHAPTER XXX 


T HE -man Nero Pensive was a skillful sinner, 
an adept in sly, cunning ways “like the 
heathen Chinee,” and a polished libertine, 
though an “Earl.” His title rather than 
his character was his social salvation. 

He still had the refining air of sweet women upon him, 
having just left the dwelling of ex-Senator Wadsworth 
in the manner pointed out, when his mind, long-trained 
in the ways of wickedness rather than the ways of pleas- 
antness and paths of peace, devised a scheme of revenge. 
If it was their purpose, deep-laid and devilish, to inter- 
pose and defeat his obtaining the beautiful and sensible 
Miss Wadsworth, he would scruple at nothing to “get 
even” with them. 

It became recessary then first to have a conference 
with Mith Gulliver. In this conference he disclosed 
these latest facts to him, whose delight was to spy upon 
the ways of others, a self-imposed work of infamy, and 
have none spy upon him. But it can be written many 
times that “it repented the Lord that he had made man 
upon the earth ;” so perhaps the Lord needed assistance 
to help him watch and to keep him informed of the 
wicked ways of wicked men. 

Mith Gulliver, devoid of a trained sense of fine moral 
distinctions, undertook this nefarious work with no cheap 
expressions of delight. He was zealous in the matter, 
305 


306 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


for it gratified his base nature. It is said that it takes 
a mean man to understand readily and fully the mean- 
ness of others. Mith had the necessary qualifications. 

According to the base-born scheme, as soon as possible 
two villains were set to shadowing Clarissa and Alice, 
with the purpose of secretly gaining entrance to their 
rooms and concealing themselves therein. Base, “mean,” 
—could anything be worse! Through the assistance of 
Mith Gulliver policemen were to be steered there, then, 
at a late hour, and search the rooms. The concealed 
men and the two unsuspecting girls were to be conveyed 
to headquarters, locked up in dishonor and shame, and 
when court convened in the morning by public trial and 
exposure they would be found “guilty.” The press would 
then supplement their downfall and degradation. The 
two “weary Willies,” taken with the disgraced, unhappy 
girls, would be fined, and paid out, and ordered to “move 
on.” The scheme was deep and probable. 

Two “fellows” were easily secured for this scandalous, 
scoundrelly work, the noble plan of the gentlemanly 
“Earl.” Ready cash for little service procures men for 
anything. It was small labor for the purchase of “much 
money,” — money bought cheaply. 

Time and opportunity were required. The villains 
could not defeat their plan by exceeding haste. It was 
no easy thing to enter the home of the ex-Senator undis- 
covered at any time, because of its location and its ser- 
vants. But it required expedition, for it was under- 
stood, at least so noted in the public press, that Mrs. 
Wadsworth and her daughter and “visitors” were on the 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


307 


eve of departing for some cool mountain resort, perhaps 
White Springs in Virginia. 

The criminal “fellows” hung around the ex-Senator’s 
“mansion” day and night studying the house and pos- 
sible ways of secretly entering and hiding. Guilt is al- 
ways on guard. The guilty must necessarily be quick- 
witted as well as have long memories. The noble “Earl” 
grew impatient at the delay of his hired rascals. Then 
he grew furious, and heaped the muck of angry adjectives 
over Mith, just as all small-minded people do to those 
under their momentary anger. 

Now it was discovered through the sagacious Mith 
that the two young ladies were no longer in the Wads- 
worth home. This was a circumstance that seemed provi- 
dential to the innocent girls. It seemed to defeat the 
diabolical scheme of the noble “Earl,” and he swore about 
it. However, he had not abandoned the plan. 

Young America is not going the way its fathers trod, 
neither is it asking whether the fathers were right or 
wrong. Little respect is entertained for the opinions of 
the older, time-worn, dusty, aged ones. To-day the 
theory is that the newer generation must be swayed by 
their own sufficient ideas, just as the older ones were by 
their own self-developed ideas. The old are recreant to 
progress when they endeavor to bind the newer to effete 
ideas and customs. So the older ones are distressed and 
declare the newer are going after strange gods. What is 
new to the older is not necessarily made false by calling 
it the vagaries of nonsense. The trivialities of the hour 
are consumptive by birth and soon perish. Indeed it is 
impossible to energize nothing. 

20 


308 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


But Clarissa and Alice, through the motherly merits 
of Mrs. Wadsworth and the sisterly spirit of Mina, 
were ready to give up their wild, girlish life and call 
Mrs. Wadsworth mother and Mina sister. They would 
put away for ever, they said, the misleading young Amer- 
ican spirit and live true, clean lives, in which there should 
not be even the shadow of the appearance of evil. This 
was very gratifying to Mrs. Wadsworth. 

One evening, not far from ten o’clock, a splendidly 
practiced feminine voice floated out like ideal notes from 
a lovely cottage in a quiet street. The tones arose in 
mellow quavers and immersed the square in cultivated 
sounds. A young American passing by set up a tenta- 
tive whine, in imitation of a dog baying at the moon, a 
dismal howl imitated by other dogs, a howl that some 
regard as a superstition pointing to a death in the family, 
— a premonitory moaning. Dogs so howl often when 
great bells ring, or whistles blow, or musical instru- 
ments play. 

Mith Gulliver, in execution of the delights of his 
being to prowl about the streets at night, heard the howl 
of the young-blooded American. It impressed the keen- 
sensed person as devoid of the sense of respect and full 
of the social iconoclastic sense. Mith sneaked up and 
astonished the young fellow with the curt question of 
what he was doing. The young fellow didn’t know, ex- 
cept the music set the dog in him to howling. 

“I haven’t evoluted fully yet, I suspect, and this howl- 
ing may be the ‘call of the wild,’ or something we haven’t 
found words for yet,” said the young man solemnly. 

“I say—” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


309 


“That young girl there in the brightly beaming cot- 
tage singing an Italian song, — don’t you hear her? — made 
me feel like baying at the moon. Now don’t she sing like 
the dying swan, or the nightingale, or something?” 

“By Ned!” cried Mith in gleeful surprise. The young 
American did not comprehend. He conceived that Mith, 
a stranger to him, had been stunned by the sweet music 
into demented silence. So the young fellow silently stole 
away, leaving Mith standing in a straining and listening 
attitude. 

Clarissa Harlow played delightfully, and her modu- 
lated, well-trained, lovely voice seemed a gift from 
heaven. The pleasure of the discovery, the soft night, 
and the magic notes made him listen, and the sweet 
sounds rioted through his lumberous being. And, too, 
through the open window he saw Clarissa Harlow, seat- 
ed in song at the well-toned piano and singing till her 
throat quavered in ecstasies, and Alice Moore-Greenfield. 
He pondered, — in his manner. And was this providence 
that he should find the lost before he had lost them! 
What better place than this retired place! 

In turning away, elated at the imformation, he mut- 
tered to himself. It was not true, what he was tell- 
ing his credulous self. He was flattering his ego by say- 
ing what a shrewd nose he had for villainy. (True. 
But he meant for smelling out villainy of others). He 
laid the flattering unction to his fat-witted soul that he 
was a fine specimen of humanity, one of nature’s noble- 
men, and he had no doubt in his soft soul that he should 
ere long be associated with the Scotland Yards, — as soon 
as he returned to London. 


3io 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


In the next moment he was made to consider another 
phase of the affair, no hint of which had crossed the 
cloudy horizon of his intellect. At the street-corner, in 
the flickering arc light, he ran squarely into Dean Mc- 
Barron, who paused and accosted him. Mith was off 
guard for moment in the sudden piquancy of his sur- 
prise. He stammered, and for an instant his tongue re- 
fused to lie promptly. 

There was a bit of trivial talk, not conversation, be- 
tween them, nothing relevant to the matter uppermost 
in their minds; and yet each knew something for certain 
that lay vivified in the other’s mind. Dean knew why 
Mith was there, and Mith knew that his detection there 
by Dean was a straw that would make their game hard- 
er. It would entail a delay, for one thing, and might 
result in defeat, in the end. And Dean was made to 
suspect that some secret plot was on foot, in which he 
mingled that “gay English lad.” They separated, and 
the footsteps of each were heard far along the night-for- 
saken street. 

After the song Clarissa said to Alice: 

“I think Mrs. Wadsworth charming.” 

“And to give us this lovely furnished cottage, because 
she said she wished to be good to us,” said Alice. “She 
is real motherly.” 

“This is a charming situation and sweet for its novelty 
and isolation, after being in the thickest of the stir for 
years. I’m tired of notoriety and the infamy that at- 
tends it. Nothing to it.” And Clarissa lounged into a 
comfortable Morris-chair and sighed, closing her eyes and 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


3i i 

thinking for a weak instant of her long-ago childhood 
home. 

Ah, heaven! what she had lived since then! And 
where had she arrived in the journey of life! God alone 
knew. The beauties of her childhood were colorless 
and dead, and what remained of her life did not seem 
worth living. There she was now, descended from all 
her greatness, gone into obscurity from which there was 
no escape now her opportunity being wasted, and regret 
had perched like a raven on the bust of Pallas on the 
mantel of her heart. Cardinal Woolsey, an ambitious 
man without settled principles, knew the deadly pangs of 
regret, that hades of the soul. It does not pay to err. 
There is a hidden viper in every sin, as sure as fate, as 
sure as cause and effect, as sure as God and life. There 
is no escape from the result, the cause once set in motion. 
The effects can’t be bribed off, given away, di- 
verted, averted, frightened off, prayed off, cried off by 
penance, repented off; they must come as the natural 
operation of cause. Life lived out, is ended forever, and 
can’t be recalled and lived over and amended. It stands 
to the judgment day as lived, and the history of it is writ- 
ten upon the memory, and can’t be rewritten to suit a 
wish born of regret. But God is infinite and merciful, 
and it is safe to appeal to him and ask his protection and 
direction. God is love. 

“Are you sleeping?” Alice inquired when she noticed 
Clarissa’s silence and closed eyes. Alice had just teased 
a sweet morsel of Chopin out of the grand piano, before 
she observed Clarissa. 

“Yes — no! And dreaming of the olden. Regrets, 


312 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


that’s all.” Clarissa even wiped away a tear that swelled 
over the rims. 

“It seems,” said Alice with a dim sense of what Clar- 
issa’s mood was, and a less desire to enter into it, “that 
Ron Cornwallis is denying all his past villainy for the 
sake of Miss Wadsworth.” 

“Money — money is what he is after. He is the great- 
est spendthrift in the world. I had money almost with- 
out stint or limit before him ; after him — the panic. He’s 
been my Nemesis.” Clarissa was never very happy in 
her relations with him, though for a short time he was 
nearly infatuated with her. “Once he said I was the 
only pebble on the beach. But there are others now. 
Truth to tell, the man is not normal. He has lived a 
life that submitted to his wishes , and as I know by bitter 
experience wishes are not a very intelligent agent in the 
government of life.” 

“I believe you are sad,” laughed Alice, and in pure 
youthful buoyancy, that did things before thought could 
rub its hazy eyes to see what was going on, she pirouetted 
once around Clarissa. These two girls were being inter- 
twined in a strange friendship. 

“No — yes. ’Tis ever thus now when I think of him,” 
said Clarissa. “I made a great mistake when I married 
the ‘Earl.’ But a title then had its charms for me. Now 
it has its charms, I fear, for Miss Wadsworth. Life is 
full of mistakes, and I fear Miss Wadsworth will make 
this fatal mistake. And he is making a strenuous effort 
for her money. He thinks he needs it — not she. But he 
can’t get it without the girl thrown in, you know. He 
is not brave enough to be a Raffles. He deserted me for 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


3i3 


her purse, and I have now turned my attention also to 
the girl. I’m going to save her if I can, for I love the 
pure, sweet thing. He shall not gain his daring, low- 
born purpose there.” She sprang up. “I defy him.” 
Then with feminine inconsistency for a little while she 
fairly raved. It was possible to “best” him, and she 
would. Mina should not be made the victim of his cold- 
blooded scheme of hold-up. He should not ruin another 
single life for money, the “trash” of Shakespere, the 
“filthy lucre” of the Bible. His life is not worth the 
hard cash it costs to “run it.” His life was an enterprise 
that would serve just as good purpose in the other world, 
— if “moved up in the back seat of the heavenly audi- 
torium when God sermonized on Sunday mornings.” 
Clarissa’s sense of religion was that the “select” were 
a morbid class of visionists, and so her remark correspond- 
ed to her opinion of religion. She, like very many, was 
not cognizant how ignorant she was in religious philoso- 
phy, and yet like most professing religious people she 
thought she had the very germ core of it and could not 
therefore be far wrong. To her, as to too many in this 
frivolous age of human development, religion had become 
so altered and reformed, that it was a mere adulterated 
religion, and some had distorted it into a morbid piety, 
into an egotistical manifestation, into an emotional rather 
than an intellectual religion, or a proper union of the 
two. 

“You know, Clarissa, that our beautiful friendship has 
one common tie now, that we knew not of when we came 
here, and that binds us to one common purpose,” said 


3*4 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Alice seating herself on Clarissa’s lap, with a little flour- 
ish of a titter. 

“Two — two purposes: to beat Nero, and to save 
Mina,” cried Clarissa. Alice again stood up. 

Dean witnessed the actions of the girls, and it seemed 
but pantomine. Believing himself the only spectator, 
the scene gave him a sense of satisfaction that he could 
not interpret. He resolved the situation into a condition 
that made his guardianship a necessity, so he remained 
there. 

But out and beyond the scope of his view was another 
watchman, with an entirely different purpose. He saw 
both Dean and the girls — Mith Gulliver. 

At length the lights went out in the cottage, and the 
girls slept. 

That noble woman, Mrs. Wadsworth, visited these 
girls daily, saw to their reading and outings and amuse- 
ments and company and living, and made their altered 
and retired life enticing enough to wish to continue in it. 
What she feared most was that this correct form of life 
would eventually pall upon them and they would break 
away from it in lawless desire to have the stimulus of 
the old. But at all events she would see what she could 
do for them, this human driftwood that had floated into 
her care, and she was satisfied the effort would be worth 
while; for no truly good force once entered into a life 
as a motive is ever entirely displaced by the rag- tag ele- 
ments of the emotional side of the human personality. 
Mina was a sister to them in many ways. Not a day 
was omitted in which she did not, in some sweet way, 
figure in their lives. She was to them like ballast. They 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


315 


came to love her as the sweetest and dearest girl on earth, 
and were ready to yield everything to her, — a supreme 
test of true friendship. Love — love! how great a force 
it is in the shaping of human destiny. It is the great law 
opposed to selfishness. The Edenic serpent has apotheo- 
sized selfishness — dirt! The unpalatable truth is that it 
rules in the conclusions of much modern so-called philoso- 
phy. It is self that seeks to divert dollars from the 
channels of business into one’s own coffers. It is self that 
controls the home regardless of the wishes or comforts or 
aims of the rest. It is self that arranges the program of 
the day with the perpendicular personal pronoun first and 
last and all through. It is self that wants to get to 
heaven by any hook or crook or back-stairway, what- 
ever happens to the rest of the human family. It is self 
that seeks “affinity,” repudiates the old and adopts the 
new, which after all is not different from the old when it 
was new; it is when all is told human love still, purely 
animal, notwithstanding the characterization of “soul 
choice,” which is false. Such “affinities” whine that they 
are “soul-weary, illusioned, comfortless.” This “affinity” 
fraud is the game of weak, freakish people. The man 
in the case too often has subdued his first sweet, meek- 
souled wife by a sort of domestic cowboy method, and 
he dominates her like a whip-cracking cowherder. And 
on the other hand the wife forgot that Eve did not worry 
the life out of Adam by asking him every hour in the 
day whether she was the only woman he ever loved. 
These “affinity dodgers” regard themselves as a sort of 
select lot of God’s daily output of stunts in manufacturing 
the human species, — a manufactory with a marvelous ca- 


3 1 6 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


pacity for variation and quantity. This select lot “Ki- 
boshes” all who are not followers of the next-to-nature 
theory; which being interpreted into common sense is 
the selfish doctrine of “I wish;” not what the “other fel- 
low wishes;” but “l.” Then a few believe in the 
shredded-wheat-biscuit stamp of love. It is true, in the 
shortsightedness of humanity, men and women are not 
always competent to select and make proper marriage 
combinations. The old farmer expressed the idea very 
well to his long limber-tongued wife: “My lands, wo- 
man, you’ve got too much fire and too little sense to live 
agreeably with any man.” That is to say, her irascible 
nature would lead her into an unhappy life, no matter 
with whom she associated. 

These ideas dragged themselves in a more temperate 
and mild form through the kindly heart of Mrs. Wads- 
worth. But no one knew better, that she was powerless to 
regulate the source of human ills in this regard. How- 
ever, her weakness was not an apology for attempting noth- 
ing for the reformation of that which lay at her feet. A 
noble confidante and cooperator was her daughter, whose 
experiences, however, were drawn chiefly from college ob- 
servations.- But Mina had abundant and continued rea- 
sons for thanking her stars that her destiny fell under the 
ascending lode star of such pleasant domestic environ- 
ments. And then she also thanked God for his wisdom in 
the selection of her parents. Parents are both destiny and 
environment. 

And the society gossips in the public press were boldly 
saying that it was first-class rumor that Miss Wadsworth 
and Earl Nero Pensive were engaged. Mina knew not 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


3i7 


the source of this very annoying publicity of what was not 
true. Clarissa Harlow better understood the motives for 
such vulgarizing publicity, and she attributed it to Nero. 
He naturally would have a motive for it; no one else. It 
is strictly correct to say that Mina was not pleased at the 
rumors put forth in cold-blooded type. The rumors were 
so deftly worded as not to compromise her in the state- 
ment, but they annoyed her sense of self-respect. They 
did not produce teasing that provoked fretfulness, not ex- 
cite smiles that had unsavory hints, not appear fulsomely 
flattering, not disparage in word or intimation, and there- 
fore she could not declare she was hurt by them — only 
annoyed. 

Then came a mid-ocean wireless message to her, two 
days after Prof. P. Thomas Nelson had departed, stating 
that they were making record speed and would reach Liv- 
erpool on schedule time, provided, etc. She easily sup- 
plied the possible proviso. As soon as he landed at Liver- 
pool he cabled his arrival. These were facts that in some 
way came to Nero’s attention and annoyed him not a lit- 
tle. 

And when he called one day, he said he had seen a brief 
mention in a daily paper that Prof. Nelson had arrived in 
England. He affected to have said an indifferent thing, 
but carefully noted her consciousness of his knowledge of 
this fact. He was not satisfied with the affect upon her 
mind, and added that he understood the public was in- 
debted for the information not through the press alone but 
through her directly. He understood no such thing. The 
information came by cable from the European press asso- 
ciation. And still he had developed no clew to lead him 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


to construe anything favorable to himself. This was posi- 
tively provoking. He merely tapped the window lace 
with his index finger, as if he were thrusting a dagger in- 
to it, looked steadily at her standing at a respectful dis- 
tance, and urged insistently, as he had done more than 
once before, — 

“Miss Wadsworth, will you not at least give me the 
privilege of the general custom of your great country, that 
of calling you by your Christian or baptismal name?” He 
had his motive for using the phrase, “Christian or baptis- 
mal name.” 

“Will you be seated,” ignoring his time-honored, weary- 
ing plea. 

“Thanks. No. — You evade me. O, I can’t think the 
evasion means a state of your heart uncharitable to me. 
I will not think it. I can’t believe the infamous scheme 
to defeat me in your esteem — only that and nothing else 
could turn you from me — can weigh a feather’s weight 
with a girl of so sane and level and comprehensive judg- 
ment as you possess, and as all admit belongs to you by 
divine right.” 

And so he went on. While he talked, the damaging 
stories to his reputation and character took a blacker tint 
in her mind. She answered smoothly and gently: 

“I hope you will bring evidence of some kind to me to 
prove the real meaning you have in all you say so easily 
and readily about your fondness for me. This is certainly 
due me.” This was not a diplomatic response, but it was 
what she had wanted to state to him for some time. “You 
tell me your side of the case, the defendant’s side, all 
you can do, to be sure, and I’m not demanding proofs that 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


3i9 


it is true as words ordinarily mean, or saying by word or 
intimation that I do not believe you, or that your offer 
does not flatter me, and all such easy and logical infer- 
ences; but I simply beg at present that you will not de- 
mand a statement or affidavit giving you my views of how 
I feel and stand in my estimation of myself toward you. 
Pray, regard this as conclusive for the present.” 

She turned and sat down in the nearest chair. Now 
that she had spoken, and reached the central, core-point in 
the affair, she was, on consideration, quite willing now to 
discuss the case ad libitum, or at least at length. The 
mind and heart are puzzles that will and will not, that can 
and can not, that wish to and do not wish to, and they 
at times amaze themselves with their inconsistencies. But 
what she said affected him like an ice-pack and he closed 
up like a clam. He sat down in polite echo of her act, 
however neither one in a Chesterfield ian spirit or the man- 
ner of Count Castiglione. 

She did exhume the strain of thought she had buried by 
her smooth frankness, and he seemed to have no tears for 
the dead subject she had “put a quietus on.” So he, in 
that light airy manner that speaks and purposes not, ram- 
bled into unclassical jungles of social chitchat, in which 
he was a skillful traveler. 

But it was observable that he made no profession of 
what he would do, and the fact was patent to Mina. She 
could not base a conclusion on this that he purposed to 
do nothing. Experience teaches that those who declare 
the least perform the best. 

After a time he very graciously took his departure. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


T HEY went out upon the hills beyond, one day, 
to play tennis, Clarissa, Alice, Mina, Peter 
Wilkins, Clever Hesperus, and Mrs. Wads- 
worth, ever a willing and cheerful soul 
where young people’s wishes were at stake. 
It was an old tennis court, much used by those out on 
the hills for a day. The enjoyment was sweet to all. 

A splendid lunch was in the motor-car, and when the 
meridian hour came all declared, not in exact language, 
except Clever Hesperus, that they were as hungry as 
wolves. And no one is foolish enough to venture an opin- 
ion about the possibilities of young, play-whetted appetites. 
And good, lovable, broad-dealing Mrs. Wadsworth en- 
tered into every jest, and every laugh, and every wish of the 
prime young people, in such spirit that all said she was 
as young as the youngest and prettiest there. The vaga- 
ries of young minds are best admired when unexplained. 
The light of analysis hurts their whimsicalities, as it does 
some modern “scientific theories,” which ere long find a 
melo-dramatic association among the ten-cent gang of 
books, — “scientific theories” which the irrepressible Peter 
Wilkins averred were put in language and “garbed in the 
fashion of day after to-morrow.” Peter was hopelessly be- 
yond exegetics at times. 

“Scientific language has about as clear and clever mean- 
ing as love language,” said Peter looking a hopelessly 
320 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


321 


blank look at Mina, while seated upon the grassy earth 
beneath a spreading tree, where all had gathered to lunch 
from an improvised table. Peter was reclining in the old 
Roman fashion, the rest sat on camp-chairs. It was a pic- 
nic meal in the primitive style. They discussed it substan- 
tially and searchingly, while the picnic wit went round 
like an infection. Clever Hesperus had not intended to 
be immune from the spirit of giddy gayety at this open- 
air festal board, but somehow he left the impression that 
he had been robbed of something by an exaggerated ego 
and by books, and for this reason he could not — simply 
could not — engage heartily in the influence and spirit of 
his surroundings. Much study had enveloped him in a 
stone wall of placidity and imperviousness. 

“What do you know about love, Mr. Wilkins?” cried 
Alice, throwing out a frank, ringing laugh. 

“I have made my friend, Miss Wadsworth, the custo- 
dian of all my information on that point,” he answered 
looking painfully sedate at a pickle in one hand and a 
bannana in the other, as if confidently debating the wis- 
dom of such a food combination. And the experiments at 
Yale at the time of the enactment of the “Pure Food 
Law” by Congress haunted a dark corner of his quick- 
working intellect. “And moreover,” he added, “my views 
on this point are about as wise and satisfactory as a proxy 
marriage.” All shrieked but Peter himself, and it was 
more at his comic manner than his words or wit. 

“You’ve no idea I was ever married by proxy?” Alice 
asked him. 

“No, I’ve no idea,” he answered. 

“An honest confession is good for the soul — I will so 


322 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


modify the old saying,” said Mrs. Wadsworth chirpingly. 

“My confessions are all and always honest, but I beg 
you will not ask me to vouch for the honesty of the con- 
fessions of others,” said Peter. 

“That would be an omnibus, onerous task, you will 
allow me to avouch,” said the well-meaning Clever Hes- 
perus, but whose speech seemed somehow devoid of fire, 
and firmness, and cheeriness. 

“Eve just met Congressman John S. Foster, of Indiana, 
and his confidential private secretary, a noble young 
man,” said Peter, “and they hold the same opinion that 
I do, that the ladies are the noblest beings in all the 
world, one step higher in the Darwinian sense of evolu- 
tion than man himself, and certainly one step higher in 
the religious sense of unfolding heavenward.” 

“Thanks, Mr. Wilkins; a compliment less deserved, I 
assure you, than we desire it to be,” said Mrs. Wads- 
worth. 

Meanwhile Peter was making good use of the idle mo- 
ment for his tongue and was demonstrating Kipling’s as- 
sertion that America is a nation of pie-eaters. 

“I think I may venture to say that Indiana’s Senator, 
Beveridge, and Uncle Joe Cannon entertain similar views 
about the fair sex,” said Clever Hesperus, looking with 
undisguised frankness at Clarissa and smiled at by Alice 
for his pains. But the smile neither added to nor took 
from the pleasure Clever found in his all absorbing look 
at the first woman who had ever stirred the slumbering 
fires in his desiccated heart long relegated to the dusts 
of desuetude. And the unfortunate thing was that his 
penchant for her was not based on reason, which he so 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


323 


much doted on but which in the final test of his leaning 
and heart was cast to the idle winds, but he admired her, 
haltingly it is conceded, in spite of himself. 

There are no bounds to the scope of picnic talk. In 
speaking of the “English Earl,” Clarissa exceeded not 
the limits of temperate speech, for she well knew that 
intemperate remarks bring about not infrequently the 
reverse of what is desired. For a little, in this little circle 
of people on the hill Nero Pensive was in the storm- 
center, in the very lime-light of discussion. 

“Indeed, I have no desire to go beyond what is true 
in his life,” said Clarissa, brushing the last crumb from 
her gown after having eaten a sufficiency, the rest still 
nibbling mincingly and awaiting the ukase of the palate 
declaring enough. “I’m convinced, though I have but 
circumstantial proof that he is behind the public press 
notices of his pending marriage to Miss Wadsworth for 
a purpose — some scheme.” 

“Circumstances, may I beg to say in all candor, have 
hung many innocent men,” said Clever Hesperus. 

“And convicted many a guilty one,” said Peter Wil- 
kins hastily. 

“And I know I married him, I confess with burning 
cheeks now, as Ron Cornwallis. The act nor name 
were honest on his part. I see villainy in both now, 
though I did not then.” 

Mina sat perfectly receptive. She was not disposed to 
defend him, nor to reprobate those saying ugly things of 
him. 

And Mrs. Wadsworth had less to say than she was de- 
sirous of hearing. She had no qualms as to what her girl 

21 


324 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


would do in the case, though many mothers have mis- 
judged their daughters who were swayed by emotion and 
not by reason, the two elements constituting in varying 
degree every human-divine compound. Her daughter, 
in whom she had the very best confidence, would not 
marry one she did not know all about , — his record and 
himself, both. But confident mothers have before now 
trusted to their sorrow. If God would only guide where 
motives are good! 

“I know not the man, except his general appearance, 
which seems fleckless and flawless enough, I am sure.” 
Peter quitted broad banality for a moment and occupied 
the wool-sack, so to speak, like Sancho Panza in judg- 
ment in his insular court. 

“The testimony of Miss Harlow,” said Mr. Exact 
Clever Hesperus, “is, me judice, sufficient to convict the 
greatest violator of the law.” 

“And I add my testimony to hers,” said Alice with 
malice prepense. 

“To be sure, let it be said, if we weigh to its fullest ex- 
tent the cumulative and confirmatory evidence relating 
to the press notices, we are ready to pronounce judgment 
against him,” said Clever Hesperus. 

“Spoken like a Justinian, or his famous lawyer Tri- 
bonian,” said Peter Wilkins. “With you, Sir Hesperus, 
I have no reason in the world to doubt the veracity of 
these witnesses, and would not if I had, so that we have 
made out a clear case against Nero Pensive, and should 
pronounce judgment and complete the court record.” 

Both Mina and Mrs. Wadsworth smiled at his con- 
ceit, and the others looked like people hesitating between 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


325 


doubt and insult. But nobody could be insulted by Peter 
Wilkins. His nature was built on the liberal plan, and he 
was really larger than he seemed. There was sometimes 
more philosophy in his mirth than in his sobriety. He 
said he was a normal man, unlike the Pittsburgites, who 
have what is designated by the new phrase the alienists 
gave the gaping public — “brain storms," — and unlike the 
Christian Scientists who repudiate pain because it is a 
scientific fact that may be upset by their theory. 

“You may consider the evidence in any light you please, 
but I’m sure of it, and know that truth remains truth, 
though declared false in court," said Clarissa, as one 
declaring the finality of her opinion. 

“And I can show the name, Ron Cornwallis, on the 
records of the Justice of the Peace in New York," said 
Alice. 

“No doubt, but the court would demand the person 
who would own the name, not merely the statements of 
others as to who he is,” said Peter. 

“If I may speak legal matters, to the extent of my 
knowledge, I would say that two credible witnesses are 
all that is necessary for a proof," said Clever Hes- 
perus juridically. 

“That is the Biblical theory, — provided the witnesses 
are credible, as you say, and willing," said Peter. 

“I know Nero Pensive,” said Alice. 

“And I know him,” said Clarissa. 

“But do you know Ron Cornwallis?” asked Peter in a 
simple fashion. 

“No.” 

“But the Justice of the Peace does, and the Lovelace 


326 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


girls, my friends, do,” declared Alice with a triumphant 
smile. 

“Verdict against him by jury without rising from their 
seats,” said Peter. 

Then all arose from the picnic table. The game was 
renewed. The afternoon flew with giddy haste into the 
limbo of the past. They were happily wearied, and life 
had an added zest because of their afternoon play-labor. 

Some one said Miss Gladys Deacon once captured the 
heart of the crown-prince of Germany, but they dared not 
marry: social distinctions repudiated the love call of na- 
ture, as if human social distinctions were more to be ob- 
served than God’s nature. Had Miss Deacon been the 
man in the case, so it is said, so that infallible Mrs. Gamp 
said, the girl would have been a merry wife in spite of all. 

Then some one criticised Miss Alice Roosevelt Long- 
worth, the lovely wife of that prince of good fellows, Ni- 
cholas Longworth, for wearing to the theatre one night a 
flaming red gown, cut extremely decollette, especially in 
the back, and with no sleeves at all. This gown was not 
in the theatre custom in Washington society, and her po- 
sition in the most conspicuous box in the theatre, the lower 
right hand one, caused many unmanageable and unrepeata- 
ble remarks to be made. 

“Yes, I was present,” said Mina, “and saw Mrs. Long- 
worth. I admire her personality and her forceful individ- 
ualism, and I think all the criticisms were at least a bit of 
meddlesome impertinence.” 

“I’m not a competent judge,” Peter denied, but he was 
not above opinions nevertheless. 

“I would say, not as a matter of opinion but as a mat- 


Apologies for love 


327 


ter of fact, that barbaric man delights in the next-to-na- 
ture garb,” said the inoffensive Clever Hesperus. 

But at length the day closed for them, and they 
skimmed the earth in an after-sunset ride home. It was 
a sensible, healthy, beautiful way of spending life, for a 
day if no more. The motive that sent these people out 
to the hills to play was different from that which sent 
the Decameron people into the forest; and they were dif- 
ferent people and the manner of their lives differed. Pe- 
ter declared with humorous emphasis that his knowledge 
of neologysm was insufficient to coin a new word to meet 
the exact state of pleasure of the day. Alice declared “it 
was out of sight.” And Clarissa, not desiring to be in 
the school of the St. Wayback set, said it was picturesquely 
beautiful. In truth their stock of fitting words to express 
their degree of delight was all too small. 

They had many kodak snap-shots of the scenery, in the 
camera and on the memory, where they had religiously 
spent the day. Peter Wilkins had asked for a picture of 
the entire group. Alice asked him what he wanted with 
it. He answered : 

“I simply want it for the satisfaction of a regret when 
thinking of it. Now, don’t think that I think that noth- 
ing is good unless it is old, for there you would mistake, — 
in all things except lovely old women.” 

All the girls cried “O — ah!” 


CHAPTER XXXII 


T HE letter that came to Mina in due process 
of time was a beautiful expression of splen- 
did culture, joyful with incident and per- 
sonal observations about the abundant 
things to notice, happy with a gentle under- 
tow of sunny spirit, mellow with a sense of the incongru- 
ous in surrounding affairs and speech, keen with laughing 
criticisms of customs and men and measures, and sane in 
purpose and general tone; and it called her to a reconsid- 
eration and introduced her to a better consideration of this 
happy letter writer. His pen had a liberty in it that was 
not shown in his hard and fast words in his economic 
books. The difference was a better revelation of the man 
and of his mental compass, and, to speak truly, a pleasant 
surprise. It was a letter that would occupy several printed 
book-pages, and there was not a limp in the tone of it in 
a single sentence. He was not one to gossip “shop” in any 
appreciable degree in his letters, but what he saw and 
heard and his conclusions about them formed the major 
part of this epistle, — neither on love, science, art, history, 
social ethics, political economy, or trade conditions, but on 
the delightful banter he saw and heard in all things 
around. 

And the compliment of a letter from him, a man of such 
literary distinction, could not be mistaken. Her own 
book was an airy, feminine affair, she allowed, and her 

328 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


329 


next, now almost finished, would not very perceptibly en- 
large her limited class of readers, and certainly not bring 
her very marked popularity, however commercialism 
might stand behind it and chaperone it into public grace. 

It is needless to read his letter. She answered. Her 
response gave some remark concerning all the friends in 
this story, and noted that “Clarissa Harlow and Alice 
Moore-Greenfield spoke very disparagingly of Nero Pen- 
sive, the young English Earl.” She mentioned that a new 
character, Dean McBarron, had appeared upon the scene 
and he was on the side of those “repeating unsavory stor- 
ies on the poor man.” As far as she had been informed 
Dean McBarron was at odds with the Earl, and she did 
not know whether it was because of matters long passed 
or because he had been suborned to play such a part in 
“the conspiracy.” The chief feature of her letter, a thing 
she had not sufficiently observed, was the story about 
Nero Pensive. The recipient observed this fact, but with 
no clear comprehension of what it meant, though he con- 
strued it in a general sense to forebode him no good. But 
his hopefulness never quite forsook him, and hope is the 
bow of promise of all good in life. 

As a matter aside now from his public work, moved by 
her letter, he began to trace the race of Pensives. It was 
in the hope he would find everything said of the man false, 
for he desired the injury of no one, not even a love rival. 

At the same time a more extended account of the “ru- 
mored engagement of Earl Nero Pensive and Miss Mina 
Wadsworth” appeared in the morning Washington pa- 
pers. And the print intimated they might be married in 
London in the autumn, and that the Earl’s family would 


330 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


have the special pleasure of the presence of King Edward 
and his Queen Alexandra, and that the King might make 
the young Earl his equerry. And as his mother was spec- 
ially chummy with the Queen, and since the King has en- 
couraged this match, or at least known of it, the ceremony 
would be a handsome affair indeed. It was hinted that 
Lord Knollys, his majesty’s private secretary, would par- 
ticularly see to the details of the part the King and Queen 
would take in the wedding ceremony. It had not been 
officially announced yet when the wedding was to be, but 
it would be duly announced in good form in good time. 

But the ex-Senator remained cautiously discreet in the 
face of this publication, and the most he would say about 
it was that it had not leaked into the press columns 
through him. However, he was absent frequently a month 
at a time, and his information might be imperfect. He was 
not prepared to suppose it possible for his daughter, a 
young lady in whose competency to direct most of her af- 
fairs in life he had ultimate faith, to have her affair de 
coeur at such a stage that he could not speak. She was 
on most truly confidential terms with him, and she never 
proceeds in an affair vital to her future but she first seeks 
his advise. He had no hesitancy in believing she would 
straightway confide such a condition to him. 

Mina carried the dispatch in the papers to her mother, 
and they were more than perplexed about such a glaring 
fabrication, they were not a little provoked. However, 
such unbidden vexations were the natural attributes of 
those who occupied the “seats of the mighty,” or dwelt 
in the places where the public passed by. Mrs. Wads- 
worth had not a probable suggestion as to the source of 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


331 


these pure inventions of some “enterprising newspaper 
man,” though she had heard Clarissa Harlow present her 
reasons for charging the offense upon Nero Pensive. She 
could see how “romances” could reach the stage of exist- 
ence independent of “enterprising newspaper men.” But 
most people make the poor newspaper scribblers scape- 
goats for most of the sins of the multitude. 

These two provoked, agitated, worried women pro- 
ceeded with the matter to “The Cottage,” and held long 
and interested conference there with Clarissa and Alice 
over this unfounded press report. Alice read it aloud, 
all listening, as she stood reclining against the end of the 
piano. All were in morning dress, and A.-M. habits of 
life, and early-day feeling, and all charged heavily with 
a sound sense of the strange reality of life. No poetical 
quotations interlarded the pages of existence in the new 
part of the day, and all time contained unknown feelings 
and events and surprises. 

“I have a keen sense of the origin of that foolish, false, 
annoying news,” said Clarissa; toying with a hydrangia 
in the bay-window, and hurling a light from her eyes 
that smacked of strong, stirring feeling within. Mrs. 
Wadsworth agitated the rocker she sat in as much as her 
own self was agitated. But she maintained her equabil- 
ity, for long training of her emotional element had 
brought her meekly to be submissive to the decrees of 
charity and cheerfulness (her religion pure and unde- 
filed). She said seriously, gently, sanely: 

“I can see that such continued flights of pure inven- 
tion in this public manner has a common purpose, and 


332 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


no doubt a common author. But the purpose of it is not 
so easily comprehended.” 

“Why should it be Nero Pensive instead of Prof. 
Nelson?” inquired Alice with more precision than she 
knew. She sat upon the piano seat, patted her foot nerv- 
ously upon the velvet carpet, and exposed her lovely neck 
by looking up to the ceiling, where a gray and blue tint 
shone down. 

“Things once set in motion, by the power of inertia 
continue to go on until overcome by the power of gravity ; 
and the application of this physical fact is seen in this 
case. It continues still in motion. Somebody is be- 
hind it for a reason.” Mina stood up, then sat down 
in indecision, or maybe in want of centralized self. 

“IVe no doubt in my mind of its origin, and of its 
purpose,” said Clarissa moving to the front door, then 
walking back, and reseating herself in the same luxurious 
chair. 

“Who, Sir Oracle?” cried Alice, the tone adding a sup- 
plemented commentary upon her brief demand. 

“Nero Pensive, to be sure. Who else? And why any 
one else? Who so interested as he? The purpose is 
to win consent of Mina, don’t you see, by seeming to 
have her committed to an open avowal of the fact. See?” 
And again she arose, set her foot squarely upon a figure 
of the carpet, and estimated how much more foot or shoe 
was necessary to cover the entire figure. 

“I can’t see, supposing him for a moment to be the 
author, what he hopes to gain by such pure figments of 
the brain,” said Mina, as if the question were a hopeless 


one. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


233 


“Yes,” and Alice laughed at so simple a proposition. 

“All things are fair in love and war,” added Clarissa, 
smiling benignly at Mina, who seemed entirely innocent 
of an orderly surmise about the matter. 

And so they vigorously threshed the case over and over, 
ever in hopeless uncertainty, getting neither comfort nor 
definite information out of it. They knew they ar- 
rived at nothing more certain than when they began to 
talk, but then it was such a sweet satisfaction to talk, 
you know, about so deeply personal affair. And this fact 
is a philosophical truth and is often an effective relief in 
extreme mental strain due to great sorrow. 

And when Mina and her mother returned home, they 
questioned themselves as to the extent of the real, live 
information gained from the conference. No informa- 
tion direct, but some consolation, in truth. 

But Clarissa and Alice felt nearer, if possible, than 
before to these two excellent, kindly hearted women, the 
like of whom they had never met before. 

Did Mina lack force of decision, as to a choice between 
Prof. Nelson and Nero Pensive? Or was it the mastering, 
hypnotic force of the evil one baffling her power to choose? 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


A SHRIEK arose one night from the silent, 
dark “Cottage.” It was long after mid- 
night. The girls, Clarissa and Alice, had 
been in the non-speculative land of sweet 
dreams for several hours. The confusion 
of the city had lulled into silence. The pedestrians’ feet 
forsook the streets and the continuous shuffle of shoe- 
leather along the pavements was no longer heard. The 
roar of wheels and the clang of gongs and the thud and 
jar of street-cars had long ceased, permitting wearied, 
suffering humanity a bit of sweet peace, such as is not 
found in the city after Phoebus and the Horae come to 
rule the day. The fury of business and the race for gold 
had yielded to the lotus-like influence of Nox, and the 
bats and the vampires were out and deviltry was upper- 
most and without organized opposition or check. What 
deeds of violence and wrong the stars of heaven look down 
upon ! What Eye looks out on men and weeps in sorrow. 
There is pain in heaven, that pure empyrean of divinity 
and of all that man holds in reverence and excellence and 
power, when the world of steady habits and sobriety is 
housed within protecting walls at home and dreaming of 
the good of shelter and protection and comfort. And 
Luna is sometimes shocked at what she beholds, while pur- 
suing her course through the star-lit sky. Ah, how much 
goes on at night that is never detected ! And how much 
sweet innocence is spared through the love and protecting 
334 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


335 


arm of Him who established the foundations of the world. 
The blackness of sin and shame is appalling. 

Long had Clarissa and Alice closed the doors, and 
locked the windows, and turned out the electric lights, 
and settled into the comforts of luxury and composed 
sleep, the economy of which in God’s plan is not ques- 
tioned. It seemed restful and trustful even to prepare 
for the night’s sweet repose ; it seemed a gracious blessing 
that golden sleep was vouchsafed to them; it seemed en- 
couraging and uplifting to think of the glorious-promising 
morrow when things would transpire which no prophet 
could foretell, — a happy deliverance itself. There was 
no air of clamor or domestic rioting and anarchy in “The 
Cottage,” when they shut up for the night, drew con- 
tentedly within, and felt the sweet comfort of seclusion 
and exclusion. The manifest peace of “The Cottage” 
itself was an earnest of the safety of the night and the 
repose and order of the morrow. They went about their 
last touches of the day’s record, closing the page in 
quiteness and approved gentleness, with a glad feeling 
that life was more than “a fleeting show for man’s illu- 
sion given.” The very enveloping darkness over “The 
Cottage” and the city and the wider world extending 
all around brought them in closer bond of love for as- 
surance and protection. It is certain that both had 
remembered their Creator in the days of their youth, though 
since then he had been absent from their thoughts and 
hearts, — though not altogether forgotten. It is easy to 
account for their drifting into the glaring and misleading 
paths of life. Mrs. Wadsworth and Mina never forgot 
them and never failed to offer them up daily to the mercy 
of a throne of grace. Influences, men say, are eternal. 


336 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


And prayers are a form of influence, to be sure. The last 
impression of both girls was that they were glad they 
were alive. 

“I hear a noise in the room,” said Clarissa, startled 
from gentle sleep about two o’clock in the morning. She 
was alarmed. She sat up erect in bed, but could not 
penetrate the darkness around. 

“No,” said Alice, starting up in fright from a dream- 
less slumber. 

“There it — but Clarissa did not finish her sentence. 

Alice, painfully aroused now, heard a slight scuffle. 
Terrified as never before, she screamed one loud, piercing, 
appealing scream that even echoed down the street. Some 
neighbors heard one keen, piquant, frightened, mad shriek 
somewhere in the locality, and wondered, arousing them- 
selves in homes enough to speak of it and listen for its 
repetition. Of course it meant something; all midnight 
feminine screams of desperation do. 

“None of that, meleddy,” said a savage, beastly voice 
close in her ear. The intense darkness itself was appall- 
ing, but the grim, harsh, male voice, at such a moment 
and under such conditions, fairly palsied her. Before 
she could again utter an alarming, piercing scream, a 
fierce, rough hand clasped her throat and bore her back 
upon the bed. Both breath and voice were suddenly cut 
off, and she, strange as it may seem, wondered where 
they would plunge the deadly blade into her sacred body 
and make a lesion through which her sweet young life 
should steal. She had no other thought than this. She 
struggled and fought, but in vain. Her arms were pin- 
ioned, her mouth filled with some dirty rag, and she was 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


337 


in a position to resist no more — passive. It was evident 
the purpose was not murder; perhaps robbery. 

“Now will you be good,” said the gruff, coarse, human 
devil. She had no choice but to consent to this request. 

Clarissa had been bound and gagged, but she resisted 
with so much purpose that in the struggle she fell upon 
the floor, where she was held with more ease by the hands 
and knees of the sovereign rascal. And she too was sub- 
dued. 

Then she wondered what had befallen Alice. Was she 
indeed murdered! The torture, in the fear that- pos- 
sessed her, was intensified by her inability to make in- 
quiry or convey her emotions to another. Alone! Not 
a comforting friendly voice, not a sound, except the 
smothered voices of the ghouls, — a state that rendered the 
situation appalling. It explained nothing to roll over 
the floor; it brought no information to wish; it was im- 
possible to guess the men or their purpose. She was 
thankful they had not come to desecrate the temple of 
womanly sanctity. Perhaps they were merely robbers 
with no design on life or person. It is indeed desperation 
of the most miserable form to be forced to lie in the dark 
upon the floor, bound and gagged, and await the pleasure 
of villains standing over, — await their next move. She 
heard a faint, smothered groan, so it seemed, from Alice, 
who lay helpless upon the bed. And the feeble sound 
had its side of cheer, notwithstanding the horror it also 
conveyed. Alice was alive then. But what had they done 
to her! Then Clarissa groaned. It was feeble, but it 
was a masonic communication to Alice. It of course 
spoke much to Alice. Joy in groans, — proof that every- 
thing is relative. 


338 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


One of the scoundrels now passed through to the rear 
of “The Cottage,” opened the back door, and looking 
out gave one quick, sharp whistle. It was a concerted 
communication to others. 

In a brief moment two men in mask entered, and stole 
silently through the inner darkness to the sleeping-room 
where Clarissa and Alice were. The contest was un- 
equal, devilish, the method of assassins, — of the Thugs 
of India. Of course they were cowards and sneaks and 
all the other epithets that men have invented for such 
masked pariahs, devils, or what not. Such a base, ignoble 
assault upon two defenceless, harmless, innocent, help- 
less women of course had its meaning. There is retribu- 
tion, perhaps necessary because of training not always 
equal and exact, in the human conscience, thank God, if 
there is not justice always in the regulations of men. 

There were now four men in the room, and two wo- 
men, tied, defenceless, helpless. Be ye men, and suffer 
not the shame of this dishonorable deed ! Be ye men, 
and seek not rather to protect the gentler, feebler sex! 
Be ye men, guilty of this fiendish act, and ask for femin- 
ine love and helpfulness! Be ye men, and ask not that 
protection be extended to your mothers and sisters and 
sweethearts. Be ye men, and look not for heaven to 
frown down upon such deeds of cowardly infamy. Be 
ye men, and claim the respect of law and of the public, 
after such crimes against every sense of human right and 
fairness! O, that law could reach into the secret places 
and protect the innocent and prevent the wrong! Like 
the poor we have the criminal with us always, and will 
as long as human nature and human conditions remain 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


339 


unchanged and unregenerate. And no one can undo and 
recreate according to his own ideas of things the works 
of God or of the devil. Certainly not by altering en- 
vironment or government. Is there no release in this 
mundane sphere from selfishness! Must every one carry 
out his selfish purposes to gratify self in the end! Is 
selfishness the keystone of the universe! And is it su- 
preme, and will it always prevail to the injury of others! 
Is another’s necessity nothing, and may it be crushed with 
impunity for king self! 

Self is the counterpart of the law of service and love, 
and will always exist, since love would be valueless with- 
out it. Self harms others for self; love helps others for 
their own sake. 

One of the two men last to enter “The Cottage’’ flashed 
a bulls’-eye over the scene, and both girls saw that their 
assailants were masked. Clarissa’s eyes caught the flash 
of a diamond ring on the hand of one, and it occured to 
her she had seen it before. But of this she could not be 
positive. Had she been able, she would have known. 
This fact of the ring rendered the situation more intricate 
and dark. The first to assault them now stood aside for 
the other two. No one spoke, perhaps lest his voice dis- 
close him. And every movement was with cautious feet. 
The moment was extreme, and intense with more than 
fear and anxiety. The moments were prodigious with 
birth of hate and anger. In the light of the bull’s-eye the 
scene seemed outre and fiendish. One man in mask said 
in tones meant to be not his own: 

“In haste!” 

“No!” 


22 


340 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


The language was incomprehensible to the two unhap- 
py girls. Both heard words with the intensest attention 
and keenest mental activity. They presaged another move. 
That there was no more verbal intercourse signified fear 
of detection. Hence both girls reached the same conclu- 
sion ; namely, that they knew the men, though disguise 
concealed their names or identity. Therefore these fel- 
lows had a design not yet apparent. It appeared not to be 
robbery. It might be kidnapping. 

The man with the diamond ring strode up to Clarissa, 
and in threatening manner flashed a genuine brand of 
the Bowie knife over her. It was a pantomine perform- 
ance, meant but to intimidate into silence now and hence- 
forth. The cowardly act had not a shadow of terror in 
if for her. He gave way for the other mask, who held the 
bull’s-eye direct in her face, held a ghastly glittering knife 
poised over her, and savagely and meanly growled in dis- 
guised tones: 

“Never again mention the Earl’s name to Miss Wads- 
worth. Take notice. Be warned in time. This is but a 
showing of what will truly happen next time.” This fel- 
low’s mask was as hideous as a face of one tortured in 
Hades a day. The fellow with the diamond ring ap- 
proached Alice and in altered voice said: 

“Both of you leave this city at once, on peril of your 
life. Let not to-morrow night find you here. Hear — 
heed ; or take the consequences. This is not buncomb, not 
mere make-believe; not to scare, but to warn.” 

Then he stooped over, put both hands upon her, and 
shook her with satanic vigor and meanness. She did not 
fear, after having heard what was said to Clarissa, and 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


34i 


she raged to speak and taunt the villain about his “gal- 
vanic chivalry” and his “courtly civility” toward two 
weak, helpless, defenceless American women, whom most 
gallant men genuinely desire to protect, not to harm. She 
entertained the thought that the crudest barbarian in the 
world would not be guilty of w T hat these supposedly Chris- 
tianized heathens were doing. 

The meaning of all this now had cropped out. This 
unfounded act was to terrorize them into a closed and 
sealed mouth concerning Nero Pensive, to compel secrecy, 
to prevent any further revelations about him to Miss Mina 
Wadsworth. And who but one desired absolute silence, 
or need take steps to enforce it? A safe preventive was 
separation from Mina, and separation could be best 
brought about by drastic measures. Nero must be allowed 
to proceed in peace with his shady wooing. That a step 
like this should be made demonstrated the crisis in his 
financial affairs. Money was his great desideratum. But 
was he one of the four dark rascals in this wonderful ( !) 
assault upon two harmless, helpless ladies! If not, then 
did he organize the attack and direct from afar! 

These were what might be called circumstantial con- 
clusions. Such villainies often end in tragedy. Sometimes 
circumstantial evidence develops shameful and long-drawn 
blunders. The mistakes of courts form a sorrowful chap- 
ter in the annals of the human family. If Nero did not di- 
rect this deed of criminality, then was the whole affair as 
mysterious as spiritualism or the mysticism of a philosophy 
that is not meant to be comprehended. 

Clarissa, it may be openly confessed because there is no 
need to conceal the fact, had had some little acquaintance 


342 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


with the unapproved side of life, and she was very apt in 
conjecturing from results to causes, according to the induc- 
tive method, being somewhat conversant with shady pro- 
ceedings and therefore better able to draw conclusions than 
others not so trained. And she fastened it all upon Nero. 
Naturally she could think of no other one. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


A CHAIN of policemen was around “The 
Cottage.” Dean McBarron, who had sus- 
pected some foul intent ever since he fell 
upon Mith Gulliver the first night Clarissa 
and Alice had domiciled themselves in “The 
Cottage,” saw to it then that a guard of protection was 
ever near. 

When Alice raised the one shriek of alarm, the watch- 
man heard. He notified Dean. A noiseless guard was 
drawn around the house, as silently as snow falls, as light- 
ly as ghosts walk in haunted places. They heard some 
slight sounds within, where darkness prevailed. Silence 
succeeding one alarmed and alarming shriek does not ar- 
gue consent to the stillness that might follow. Something 
was happening that was criminal, no doubt. 

Dean was not mistaken, and hesitancy did not mark his 
efforts at relief. The unwritten law would sustain him 
whatever he did. 

He and a captain of the police stole through the rear 
door, as gently as breath, and tiptoed through the thick 
blackness of the rooms to the scene of the villains, but 
with cautious ear. A subdued male voice in a room to the 
right stirred Dean’s blood. The door was closed. By 
chance a peep through the keyhole disclosed the situation 
by a lucky flash within of the bull’s eye. The condition 
had not altered any there. The furies of the past tore 
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344 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


through Dean’s heart. There was an emergency. Dean 
stood up after a peep through the keyhole, and with a 
quick surge he flung the door wide open. The bull’s-eye 
had closed as by magic, and not a gleam pointed them how r 
to proceed. 

Poor, helpless girls, they could not make an outcry, 
could not shout at their rescue, could not welcome their 
deliverer. 

The captain stepped in hurriedly after Dean and closed 
the door. 

“Trapped, men,” said the captain. “A line of police- 
men surround you. Surrender.” 

He was answered by a revolver. Words could not be 
fitly spoken now. The flash revealed the spot of the vil- 
lain, but he was not stupid and instantly shifted his posi- 
tion. Just as the captain flashed a bull’seye upon the trag- 
ic scene, Dean fired. There was another shot, and the 
hand that held the light let go. The lamp fell with a 
thump and went out. Dean fired again, and the captain 
fired. It was a duel in the dark at close range, suggestive 
of Jules Verne’s duel scene in Michael Strogoff. One 
villain yelled : 

“Furies!” 

His pistol fell with a thud. The noise was welcome to 
the rescuers. The cry of pain was a victory. Many more 
shots now followed like a fusillade. Dean rushed forward 
and grappled one of the men, much as men of war did in 
the old-time sea fights. As he did so, some one struck a 
match. The one whom Dean had caught accidentally 
dropped his mask in the struggle. In the light of the 
match, ignited by one of the villains, the man Dean had 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


345 


grasped put his revolver at Dean’s throat and fired, the 
ball passing through the victim’s neck. Dean’s hands re- 
laxed and he sank to the floor. The fellow, who had a 
diamond ring as the captain saw, turned, reached the win- 
dow, and with a plunge fell through the glass upon the 
outside on the soft grass. While a dozen policemen were 
rushing into the room to the assistance of Dean and the 
captain, the man who crashed through the window slunk 
away behind the shrubbery, hurried along the fence shad- 
ow half bent, and was seen no more. 

The other three men were soon overpowered and cap- 
tured, and marched off at once to the lock-up, where they 
underwent some of the restraints they were enforcing 
upon others. 

The captain and one of his men released the bound 
and gagged young women, and light was at once turned 
on, and Dean was looked after and cared for in the 
best of manner. 

Nothing can paint the attitude of mind and feelings 
of the two girls. They had been silent, helpless, enforced 
spectators of a battle at near range, one of the deadliest 
kind and one that requires the greatest courage. They 
were not themselves free from danger, and a stray shot 
might end their careers. However horrible had been 
their situation before the fight, it became during the bat- 
tle ten fold more agonizing. No one can tell the tor- 
ture of the sensations of those passing through a desper- 
ate tragedy and altogether helpless, either to flee for 
safety or to assist their friends. 

Few words had been said upon the circumscribed bat- 
tle-ground in that bed-room. After the contest the feel- 


346 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


ing was so distressed and shocked that words lost force 
and even meaning. This was an experience so rare that 
no language has been invented to depict either emotions or 
scene. 

Perhaps Dean was murdered outright by the villains. 
After her release and by the aid of the light, Clarissa 
recognized him, and ran and lifted his ghastly bloody 
head. He was her friend, — her friend in her greatest 
trial in life, and now was dying in her defense, — laid 
down his life for her! His blood, — shocking! — awful! 
— past the boundaries of reason ! — streamed over her 
kimono. Soon she was bloodier than he was, but still she 
clung to him as if she would retain his life by holding 
him. 

“O, Dean! and all this for me!” She stroked back 
the hair that had scattered over his great brow. His 
eyes were closed. He was breathing, but he seemed 
unconscious. “Dean! Open those speculative eyes and 
let me see that you are still there. Dean! O I will not 
let you die this way. Dean ! Hear me ; it is so painful 
and so constricts the heart to speak and not know you are 
heard. Dean ! Is my voice no longer a thing of beauty 
and a joy forever to you. O, will you now steal away 
before our eyes and leave us alone, after dying to save 
us , — for whom ! Dean ! Will I never more see the 
smile on your lips and the summery laugh in your eyes 
and hear the sweet joy of love from your tongue. Dean 
— Dean — O! Heaven, hear me, if he will not and tell 
me, and tell me, O tell me. I know not what I should 
be told ; you do. And Dean ! I love you, and I do not 
know why, and I can’t— I can’t let you leave me. The 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


347 


variations of life, — no dream can equal them, no fancy- 
can paint them, no youth can conceive of them ! Dean ! 
I must not let you leave me here alone in this unfriendly, 
bleak world. There is a way out, the one Brutus found 
at fjhillippi, and I can go to you, follow you, let the 
world slip into its dotage, pass it up, and cross over to 
you. Dean! You can’t mean to be cruel and forsake me 
forever, deny me, and go down into the gloomy cold pit 
alone. You have been a friend to me — a friend — a 
friend such as circumstances can’t make or unmake, — a 
friend such as fate gives to few. Dean ! hear me, Dean ! 
I have never denied you; I have taken you as the measure 
of everything straight and worth while in life. Dean! 
Look up, speak, let me hear you say my name once more, 
and know that you have not wiped me out of your heart 
and denied my portrait on the walls of the galleries of 
your memory!” 

Poor, weeping, sad thing! Alice went to her, tried to 
lead her away, to enlist her in other things, counseled her. 

“Come away, my dear, and let others care for Dean,” 
Alice insisted. 

“No — no! let me be! He would want me here, and 
would not be happy if he knew I were not here!” 

The physician came, for whom the captain had tele- 
phoned. Clarissa gave way to him. The surgeon made 
a hasty examination, ordered an ambulance, and sent him 
immediately to one of the hospitals. The captain’s wound 
was in the palm of the hand, not very serious or painful, 
and he never retired from duty on account of it. 

In less than one hour “The Cottage” was still, echoless, 
peaceful ; but stained profusely with blood upon one of 


348 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


the carpets. It henceforward had a tragic history, and 
people would point to it and recite perverted portions of 
the story related here. Always thenceon it was to be un- 
canny. 

The two young ladies, dressed afresh and anew, were 
conducted with profound circumspection by the police 
captain to the home of ex-Senator Wadsworth, where 
they were admitted about three o’clock in the morning. 

Every nerve was tense, sleep was far away, the pulse 
still ran strong in excitement, the memory was shocking 
them with the awful views registered there, the tongue 
felt palsied and stiff after the rough gagging it had en- 
dured, and they were objects of real concern and pity. 

And when they had told their story to Mrs. Wads- 
worth and Mina, broken, and patched, and amended, and 
full of emotional color, the agitated auditors declared it 
surpassed the greatest fancies of fiction, the wildest in- 
ventions of novelists. They said no stone should be left 
unturned, until the criminals were found and handled to 
the fullest extent of the law. Both Mina and her mother 
felt like reprobating themselves for allowing the girls to 
domiciliate themselves alone in “The Cottage.” 

The ex-Senator learned the story from the columns of 
the paper next morning, knowing nothing more than 
that. He was nonplussed to find a motive for the dark 
deed. The story itself was a revelation in a free coun- 
try and startled him, — there in the heart of his own city 
and almost in his own home. It could not be overlooked. 
It must be “run down.” The agents must be found. 

In London Prof. P. Thomas Nelson took up his morn- 
ing paper, while waiting the pleasure of an untipped 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


349 


waiter for his breakfast, and read the brief account with 
alarmed interest. It seemed impossible that any persons 
he ever knew should be the actors in such a tragic drama. 
Had he known the later developments of this social lese 
majeste of the villains, he would have been less puzzled 
to understand. The press notice was too meager in state- 
ment to convey anything clear to him. There was little 
more in the brief cable news than that such a piece of 
diabolism had been perpetrated in the very capital of 
the United States and almost in the very home of one of 
the United States ex-Senators. 

The Professor dispatched his meal with hasty concern, 
and then wrote and dispatched a brief cablegram to 
Mina, expressing joy at her safety and surprise at the 
emotion-exciting crime and asking details of the affair. 
Then he resumed his daily inquiries, and took up the la- 
bor of collecting facts and statistics at first-hand and 
counseling and elaborating with the two other members 
of the committee. The second morning he read a fuller 
account. 

The public, generally apathetic to such things because 
of the daily deluge of them, regarded this affair, because 
of the prominence of the personages in it, with more at- 
tention than ordinary. And especially was this true in 
Washington. The wide circle of acquaintances of the 
Wadsworths, and their social leadership in that city, and 
their very great wealth, afforded the press reasons for 
entering into fuller details the second morning. There 
was an extended, full, and detailed report. In addition 
there was a deluge of talk, small and otherwise, and 


350 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


speculations and guesses were as profuse as fallen autumn 
leaves shifting in the wind. 

Early in the day, moved by the one event of the night 
preceding, Peter Wilkins, in faultless dress (neatness of 
person was Peter’s one and only weakness), and Clever 
Hesperus, not a dude, but one who was as exact in dress 
as in speech and manner, called at the Wadsworth home 
to offer sympathy and obtain the truth. The desperate 
deed seemed almost personal, since it affected those they 
knew so well and so recently held intimate converse with. 

Peter Wilkins was never nervous, and Clever Hes- 
perus, if ever nervous was too well self-disciplined to per- 
mit a sign of it to manifest itself, and they entered into 
the merits of the story con amore as Clarissa Harlow and 
Alice Moore-Greenfield related it in feminine, emotional, 
repetitious manner. 

“I would say, if I were called upon to express an opin- 
ion, that the villains met with less in the rencontre than 
they evidently merited,” said precise Clever Hesperus, 
when the story had been told and reached the stage of 
addenda and ample notes. 

“The motive for it all passes my understanding, turn 
the case as I may,” said Mina in an unconscious judicial 
tone. She had just crossed the luxuriously carpeted and 
richly furnished drawing-room and had sat down by Peter 
Wilkins, the act being entirely without purpose or self- 
consciousness. The intensity of the moment had moved 
all to a disregard of that aplomb and self-restraint which 
more stately occasions impose. Peter, at the moment un- 
conscious of his act, walked to the opposite side of the 
room and sat in a chair that had occupied his eye for 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


35i 


some time, and had mesmerically drawn him to it. No 
one observed his movement, though subsequently it was 
spoken of by Peter himself. 

“There is a reason for this assault, and there is a per- 
son with a reason sufficient, as he evidently thought, I 
venture to think, to do this thing,” said Clever Hesperus, 
with a sort of Henry James tone of analysis. 

“That is clear, at all events,” said Clarissa, “and I 
know him from a diamond ring that flashed on his finger 
in the very deepest of his deed. It was a gift of mine, in 
my palmy days, before I had been robbed and deserted by 
him.” She looked at Mina. Alice also turned her lus- 
trous black eyes like a lorgnette upon her. 

“I’m sorry to hear this. If true, and I can’t doubt it, 
the Earl is a man we should be glad to be relieved of,” 
said Mrs. Wadsworth. Mina did not speak, though she 
was expected openly to coincide with her mother. 

“An examination of the prisoners may bring forth 
some real live evidence, something that may send the lux- 
ury of shivers upon us,” said Peter Wilkins, giving an 
exhibition of the sort of shivers he meant. 

“And I knew him when his mask fell off,” said Alice. 

“Pity he got away,” said Clarissa in deep seriousness. 

“There’s a limit to the earth these modern times, and 
so as long as a man is above ground he may be found,” 
remarked Peter Wilkins, lifting his eyes to the ceiling, as 
if defying any culprit to escape the argus-eyed “bloody” 
law in these wide-awake latter days. 

“I wonder, if indeed I may wonder at all at anything 
and at any time, who the fellows were the police cap- 
tured,” said the exact Clever Hesperus. 

“I have not heard,” said Clarissa. 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“They may peach,” said Peter in fervent notes. “Find- 
ing themselves pinched by the red-eyed law, they may be 
like the little boy, who had his older brother also feel his 
papa’s ‘soft tooth’ so as not to be the only victim of the 
laughable jest. That is the spirit of human nature.” 

“The gravity of the case is that one man should be 
killed,” said Mrs. Wadsworth. 

“How far they have carried on their lower-world des- 
peration may not now be known, for I’m convinced the 
police and Dean McBarron interrupted the proceedings.” 
Clarissa shuddered as she permitted her imagination to 
conjecture what might, and perhaps would, have happened. 
“Poor Dean — poor Dean! He gave his valuable sweet life 
for me! And I’m not worthy of the sacrifice!” 

She stole out of the room in a gush of tears, and every 
one had a real ache in the heart for her. Mrs. Wads- 
worth could not conceal a sympathetic tear that rimmed 
her lids. 

“I may say,” said the impossible man who couldn’t make 
a mistake, “that Miss Harlow is still wrought up in 
thought and feeling, and realizes more and more, as she 
comes back to her normal self, that a man of some kind 
lost his precious life in her defense.” 

There was more conversation, all tending to the furth- 
er elucidation of this unhappy affair, and perhaps an hour 
was consumed thus. As soon as the two male visitors had 
gone, Clarissa, Alice and Mrs. Wadsworth went to the 
hospital to see the dying man. But they were not allowed 
to see him. However, he was living still. The expert sur- 
geon, one of the best in the country, said the man’s life 
was in the balance with nine chances in ten against him. 

“Mrs. Wadsworth,” said the man of probe and scalpel, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


353 


after having exhausted his non-English terms to describe 
the serious wound that almost always proves mortal, “I 
would I could give you as definite hope as I have given 
you definite description of the case, but unfortunately I 
can not.” 

“I’m indeed sorry the case is hopeless,” said Mrs. Wads- 
worth dejectedly. 

She led away the girls, silently, for they were bathed in 
smothered tears. A great grief, the Popocatapetl of her 
sorrows, had entered the soul of Clarissa like iron. There 
was a time when sorrows were so exotic and far away, 
that she never dreamed they could ever come near enough 
to dwell in her soul. She thought, if she thought at all, 
that she and sorrow would forever remain total strangers, 
— never meet, in fact, and be introduced, — strangers! And 
if sorrow ever came to ask acquaintance she would cut the 
sombre dame dead. But now — why this idea seemed so 
childish and immature — “crude and amateurish,” she af- 
terward allowed. 

They recounted to Mina their experiences at the hospi- 
tal, and the hopelessness of the life of poor Deane McBar- 
ron. Clarissa could not think or speak of it without the 
wells of sympathy washing lines upon her sorrow-shaken 
face. Consolation, there was none for her. Loving words, 
they were stupid. The law and the culprits, this was 
mockery. 

Alice seemed enthusiastic in the hope that the four des- 
peradoes might fall into the pit they had dug. The ner- 
vous tension of all was extreme, and the more talk the 
more thought and distress there was. Clarissa was almost 
in a state of collapse. Alice was in the attitude of mind 
that caused enlarged, excited, quick-flashing eyes. 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


It was the day of days to them, and the recent alarming 
events kept the feelings active, excited, exhausting. There 
was no ray that could dispel the shadow, no arm that 
could reach down through the clouds and support* no 
voice that could approach the soul with a soothing, quiet- 
ing message. Sorry to say it, but these two girls had neg- 
lected to cultivate intimate acquaintance with God since 
their spiritual tutelage at early home. And now, God be- 
ing a comparative stranger, their soul-cries in secret to him 
for comfort were of little avail. Their own minds, so 
long neglected, had not been accustomed to receive conso- 
lation from Him, the author of life and love and light, 
and they were ignorant of the methods to obtain His lov- 
ing cheer. But Mrs. Wadsworth did not forget them, 
when she spoke heavenwards of evenings. Her soothing, 
balmy, loving, matronly hand and influence supplied the 
place of mother to these poor world-drifting creatures. Be- 
cause she was a new-found mother, she was dearer to them 
than the mothers who went from them ; dearer if possible 
than she was to Mina, for Mina had never known the 
need of one by the want of one. 

Mrs. Wadsworth, by kindly ways, without insistence or 
logical appeals, turned their feet into the paths of peace, 
and set them journeying on the way that Pilgrim went. 
Music seemed now sweeter and brighter to Clarissa than 
ever before. Alice determined that her vast fortune should 
not be squandered by a foolish girl. Mrs. Wadsworth as- 
sured the two adopted daughters, so in a sense, that crosses 
are ladders that reach to heaven, according to the French 
proverb, and that trials are great disciplinary activities. 

These two bits of human driftwood were not brought 
to wisdom’s ways in an hour, or a day, or a month. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


N ERVING herself for the purpose, Clarissa 
decided to visit the lock-up that same af- 
ternoon. Mina and Alice and Peter Wil- 
kins and Clever Hesperus would accom- 
pany her. Such a visit, for such a purpose 
as they entertained, possessed marvelous possibilities in it. 
Clarissa hoped to gain, if possible, some bit of sustaining 
information in the case. It might make clear the motive 
for the assault, and resolve all her doubts. 

No, the prisoners could not be brought out of the de- 
tention room; however, they could be seen from the cor- 
ridor and talked to, if that would be satisfactory. It was 
forbidden to give a prisoner a chance to escape. 

Mina grieved under the yoke of self-reproach, and felt 
a shock, on entering this slum-element depository, — where 
vile criminals and the scum of humanity are held in dur- 
ance vile for breaking the law as defined by Blackstone and 
his followers. It was no credit for any one, official or 
criminal, to be there for any purpose. And so she issued 
formal indictment and impeached herself for being there, 
— though she was justified according to legal terms. She 
went under protest, though in obedience to the subpoena 
of true friendship. It is certain she thought of “The In- 
ferno” and the Mantuan guide of the Florentine poet. 

What was Clarissa’s and Alice’s surprise to find one 
of the prisoners none other than Mith Gulliver. He had 
355 


356 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


given his name to the police records as St. Townsen. The 
other two men were strangers. They were low-browed, 
paid accomplices. They were as guilty as they looked 
mean. 

Mith had a slight wound in the wrist, the result of a 
bullet in the melee the night before, but he treated it as 
nothing. 

“This bit of a scratch is nothing, I can tell you. I say 
it’s nothing,” he continued in his garrulous strain, “to 
what I have had when pursuing the line of my regular 
duty as detective [a barefaced untruth], and I never was 
afraid of any weapon man ever stuck in the face of an- 
other.” He in truth was less brave than his statement 
made him appear, he never was shot at before, and he 
never was wounded by a leaden missile till now. He was 
proud of his wound. The oftener he would tell it the 
greater it would become in the future, like a snow-ball 
rolled in the snow. 

“If I may speak a sentiment I find lying very close to 
my heart, — nearer than to my intellect, — I must say I am 
surprised and aggrieved to find you here,” said the strictly 
correct Clever Hesperus. Peter Wilkins was standing 
near Mina in both an assuring and a protecting attitude, 
and he spoke before Mith could resume: 

“It is unaccountable that you should be here, Mr. Gul- 
liver.” 

“No. I say no. I said no, you heard me. You don’t 
know me. You don’t know me yet.” 

“True!” assented Clarissa. Her detective! And here! 
For assaulting her he was paid to defend! Could she be- 
lieve her eyes and ears ! How she had been imposed upon ! 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


357 


And he had taken her money to betray her! And betray 
her to her deadliest, vilest enemy — her husband ! 

“But I’m here,” resumed Mith; “and I was trapped in 
your room, — you two. So much you knew before I told 
you, I say. But you don’t know the rest. Clarissa will 
not believe, I guess, when I tell her, and I call God to 
strike me dead if it is not true in every item and particular, 
— tell her that I was never her detective in truth, but 
Nero Pensive’s. But I took her money, pretending to 
spy on him, when I was merely carrying reports of her to 
him.” 

“O you miserable — worst ever!” Clarissa cried in tones 
of regret at the deception he had put upon her. She was 
too over-taxed in astonishment to respond to him in terms 
that would do justice to the villain. 

“Was ever such a dastard unhung,” cried Alice, a flush 
of anger scurrying over her lovely, loving face like a dense 
storm-cloud over the sky. 

“O, that small little bit of deception was scarcely big 
enough to make a mark on my seared conscience. Another 
thing, one I did at Atlantic City, by order of him who all 
along had paid me good big money, so that I had no kick 
coming, and that thing was the attempted robbery of the 
Wadsworth cottage. I didn’t get away with the jewelry 
case after I had it in my possession. Miss Wadsworth 
there knows very well why. She and a nasty big dog 
had something to do with it. She knows. She knows all 
about it, I say. But I played a slick game, and never went 
away from there, and so all clue to me was lost. I called 
next day to see you, Miss Wadsworth, to show myself 
how easy and slick it could be done. I took my report of 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


the failure to secure the diamonds to Nero Pensive in New 
York, and he was out of funds and out of temper, and we 
had a real time of it, now you can bet, a real ‘hot time in 
old town to-night.’ But he couldn’t afford to break with 
me. So we made up again over a bottle of old Madeira 
and brandy and soda. He had been down to Atlantic 
City just before, incog., you know, and he planned this 
robbery and put me to do the biz., while he returned to 
New York for safety.” 

“Are you romancing?” demanded Peter sternly, center- 
ing his eyes with penetrating force upon the wordy fel- 
low. 

“True as Gospel preaching, true as I’m living, true as 
I’m here,” said Mith, brows knit to enforce his words and 
make doubly sure that he uttered the truth. 

“It seems incredible,” said Mina, looking at Peter. A 
monstrous plot was being unfolded, an incredible affair. 

“Indeed, my friends, I say, he was mighty low in funds 
then, and he had to raise the wind, you know, and couldn’t 
wait to marry Miss Wadsworth, and so the diamond rob- 
bery he planned and was carried to a successful failure. 
He married Miss Alice — lem me see, — Alice Moore- 
Greenfield here in double quick order along just before 
then, and that scheme to gobble up her money under an- 
other name also went wrong. Ever since he had been in 
this country, things have looked awfully blue for him.” 
The narrator beat the iron grating with closed hand, in 
taps not altogether gentle, indicative of the feeling with- 
in. “The nasty thing we were in last night,” he resumed, 
“and that ended in tripping me up and trapping me into 
this calaboose is of course in everybody’s mouth. Nero 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


359 


Pensive was again the headpiece to this fine failure. He 
planned it. It was a scheme of his own invention. He 
thought it out in detail, I say, and then confided it to me, 
— the whole thing, you know. I got the two fellows here 
now with me in this lovely place, as you see, to do the first 
part of the work. If the girls should give the alarm, the 
fellows could slope, and we two wouldn’t be known in it, 
see ! After they had successfully gagged the two girls, we, 
Nero and me, went in, safe then, you see. It was all 
planned and done to keep the two girls from telling on him 
to the Wadsworths, with whom he wished then to stand 
in. He wanted to shut off Alice’s story about marrying 
Ron Cornwallis, and he meant to scare her into silence, 
and drive ’em both out of town. And Clarissa mustn’t 
tell any more that she is his wife. Not much. And he 
don’t believe it yet. But he said he recollected afterward 
that you, Miss Harlow, or Mrs. Pensive, acted mighty 
queer on the marriage morn’. But — be it as it may, he 
must now do the next best thing and smother out, some- 
how or other, I say, all gossip, until after he was safely 
married to Miss Wadsworth, at least of all events, and 
got his hand deeply into her fat purse. It was the fat 
purse he was after, and he had to get that through the 
girl, with the girl thrown in as cumbrous baggage. After 
he shot Dean McBarron last night he sloped, and I think 
a smashed window in ‘The Cottage’ will prove this fact. 
You, I think, will never find him. The marriage of Miss 
Wadsworth is all off suddenly now. Circumstances have 
changed, you know. He paid reporters liberally to put the 
account of his engagement to Miss Wadsworth in the 
papers, for the purpose, he said, of making her think an 


360 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


engagement to an English Earl was worth while. But 
the notice will never again be inspired by him. It was 
mighty good in the girls to move alone into ‘The Cottage/ 
just to his hand, he said, seemed like providence in his 
favor, and he actually laughed instead of swearing as he 
usually done. Now, I’ve told you the whole truth, if I 
never told it before, and nothing but the truth, so help 
me Jonathan, and I will swear it before any court on 
earth or in heaven, — before my God I will.” 

The fellow seemed sincere. The other two fellows 
were mute, faces averted, but all ears to the story. 

“What you have said of last night’s deviltry is true, I 
know,” said Clarissa. 

“And I know it to be true, too,” said Alice. “But I 
never knew before why he married me on a caprice.” 

“All these things, I doubt not, permit me to say en 
peasant , are susceptible of proof, or if not susceptible then 
capable of proof,” said the wily, over-straight Clever Hes- 
perus. 

“Proofs will not be wanting at the proper time,” said 
Peter Wilkins with more assurance than usual. 

“If I may be so bold, and you will pardon me I am al- 
ready assured, who is this Nero Pensive, said to be an 
English Earl, I should cleverly like to know,” asked 
Clever Hesperus, a deeper line in his brow than common, 
and a new application of mind shown in his eyes. He went 
up as near Mith Gulliver as the iron grating would per- 
mit. Even Peter Wilkins was called upon to remark the 
evidence of self-assertiveness manifested for the first time 
in the case by the questioner. Hitherto he had allowed 
them to regard him as a good, easy, clever, exact, eccen- 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


361 

trie fellow, with less energy than is required to turn the 
world over; but his true, direct, core-center question ar- 
gued much in his favor. 

“I know little about his antecedents,” said Mith Gulli- 
ver, a frown ominous setting serenely upon his cheeks, 
more significant of his state of feelings than suggestive of 
clear-working intelligence, “and I wish I knew less.” 
He inspected casually his bandaged hand. “I know him to 
be an Englishman, son of a man of title, and that he has 
an elder brother, Lord Elmdale, in Parliament. I met 
him in Paris, where I was looking up a case, and he there 
engaged me in his services, — more than a year ago. He 
threw money away lavishly, as a man who might dwell 
on Money avenue. He said he needed me, and he called 
me a ‘nosey fellow,’ a sort of ‘butinsky,’ he said, just his 
style and need. I was simply to do as he said, be his tool, 
play Foxy Grandpa, Buster Brown, Sherlock Holmes, or 
even Raffles or Checkers or the Yellow Kid, if need be. 
And I did, and he gave me money. He never told me 
half he had in mind, or the reasons why he often sent me 
to privily capture other people’s sentiments and plans. I 
was even at times sent to prey upon the sentiment and feel- 
ings, seize them and carry them to him, of Miss Wads- 
worth. I suppose he knew what he was doing, I didn’t al- 
ways.” 

“Where did he haunt, not frequent, most in this coun- 
try, I ask you point direct, sir,” said Clever Hesperus. 

“New York was the radiating point, easiest to conceal in 
or fly from; you know.” 

“Did he suppose your attack upon ‘The Cottage’ would 


362 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


end disastrously?” asked Clever Hesperus like an attor- 
ney. 

“No — he had no idea of such a possibility, and thought 
he had cut off every possibility of defeat or detection by 
employing two men to go first and prepare the way, you 
see.” 

“Two Johns in the Wilderness instead of one,” re- 
marked Peter Wilkins as an aside matter. 

“Did he ever say where he would go should he suddenly 
leave the United States?” asked Clever Hesperus direct. 

“No — well — no! Of course he would go back home to 
England, or some other place.” 

“No doubt,” interposed Peter Wilkins. Mina smiled 
for the first, after this unholy place had dragged forward 
all the disorderly emotions of her heart. 

“I’ve no use for him now. He’s deserted me in the 
very hour and article of my extreme distress, when he 
should be at my elbow standing up for me who’s done so 
much for him.” 

“To be sure he should. But he isn’t, you see,” said 
Peter blandly, touchingly, mockingly. “Whenever I see a 
man speaking tenderly and like a professional tear-crier 
of his quondam friend, saying he has no more use for him, 
I understand he has lost out with him. Evidently.” 

“Well, wouldn’t you?” Mith hurled back. 

“Where human nature reigns supreme, the one we once 
loved but now hate will ever get the blister end of our 
tongues. One, however, can get familiar with the devil 
and perhaps in time find even some good in him, and even 
some evil,” said Peter sardonically. Mina again smiled, 
and Alice chuckled. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


36.3 


They departed. But not till Peter Wilkins had re- 
quested that the prisoners be detained till he could properly 
proceed against them. 

This man, Peter, one of the very best young legal tal- 
ents in the city of Washington, at once offered his services 
to Clarissa and Alice, not as one guilty of champerty but 
as a friend, and not a friend either as by proxy through 
Mina, his ideal, who had been unfortunate in exciting a 
love that she could not return. His legal services were ac- 
cepted with joyful alacrity. And Clever Hesperus, as a 
very excellent second, offered to aid Mr. Wilkins to pros- 
ecute the case to the legal limit. 

So it was concluded. 

The poor victims of the chief conspirator, who must 
suffer as accomplices in the deed, were not generally repro- 
bated so much nor allowed to be so guilty as he who en- 
gaged them. It was on this theory that the two attorneys 
proceeded. 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


T HE confession of Mith Gulliver, and the em- 
ployment of attorneys to investigate the mat- 
ter before a court of justice, left no room for 
Mina longer to question the duplicity of 
Earl Nero Pensive. And in a brief time the 
very name began to look ugly to her. The spell of his 
telepathic charm was dissolved. She came to this conclu- 
sion from evidence that induced a revulsion toward him, 
who endeavored to compromise her innocence into a guilty 
union with him, knowing at the some time his utter un- 
worthiness for such an alliance. The deeper the psycholo- 
gical crime of the arch conspirator sought to commit sank 
into her consciousness, the more unworthy and desperate 
he became. He cared not for her honor, her family name, 
her happiness, or her future in any sense. He was despica- 
bly selfish in his low purpose. It was not herself he sought 
as any honorable man would have done, but her vast in- 
heritance. To be sure the annual allowance by her father 
during his lifetime would not be niggardly, and after her 
parents’ death untold wealth would be theirs. Her 
thoughts brought a revolution of sentiment against all for- 
eign titles in general, remembering w T hat her father had 
said to her in Paris about the poor, trashy, titled gentry. 

“How could he do it, my dear!” cried Mina to her 
mother in sheer terror as she contemplated the revolting 
fact in all its ramifications. 

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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


365 


“Be glad, my dear, you escaped so grave a calamity,” 
said the mother kindly. They were walking down Penn- 
sylvania avenue on a little shopping jaunt. “A mistake of 
such a character so spoils life here that it pursues them, I 
half think, into eternity, and establishes, or naturalizes, 
them down there in a new country, differently governed 
from our great land, narrowed in nature very much as 
they were when they departed from the shores of time. Be 
thankful, my dear, you are Scot free.” 

“O, mamma! I shudder when I think of it, think of the 
social precipice on the very Frink of which I stood toppling. 
It meant my absolute and everlasting ruin.” 

“A miss is as good as a mile.” 

“I detest and abominate such a consummate hypocrite. 
What professions he made to me, what lies he told, and 
what lies he meant me to infer, — worse even than the 
spoken lies.” 

“There are all grades and shades and shapes and sizes 
and types of mortality and morality, from the eye-uplifted 
style to the style that blends with the socially indiscreet. 
And with all our best care and attention to distinguish 
the pure from the adulterated, we all of us are sometimes 
imposed on and deceived.” 

“Is it true, that he never had honest intentions in all the 
nice fanciful things he devised and said to me! I’m pained 
to find human honor possible of such real decay. He then 
meant nothing in what he said to me. False — false, every 
word of it. Uttered for a criminal purpose. It is my 
ideal to place my love upon one so I can say, ‘Though he 
slay me, yet will I trust in him.’ I thank the fates and 
poor, suffering Clarissa and sweet Alice for this timely ex- 


366 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


posure. How much I owe them! I’m happy in knowing 
the Christian duty not to forsake them. But I must con- 
fess to you, mamma, and it would not alter the fact if I 
said it in a spirit of sour grapes, I confess that I never 
really thought seriously a moment of the man. It horri- 
fies me to think I was the victim of an attempted decep- 
tion. Riches have dangers, great dangers. I don’t know 
what the public will think now after all those foolish, fool- 
ish, foolish statements in the press. But, indeed, instinct 
revolted against the man, and a secret feeling, a sort of 
subliminal sense, caused me to be on my guard against him 
in his presence ; and I even had to restrain myself from 
open antagonism. Now I hope I will not be understood 
as playing or toying or flirting with him by allowing his 
palaverous attentions.” 

“I have heard you make remarks to him that had a 
jar in them,” said Mrs. Wadsworth. 

“As I have before told you, mamma, he proposed and in- 
sisted upon it more than once, but I put him off with du- 
bious remarks. It never had an air of great seriousness in 
it. 

“The man was not a man.” 

“The title never appealed to me and is no sort of substi- 
tute for a real man,” said Mina. “I never found him soul- 
congenial. His telephatic touch was repellant. In exter- 
nals he was perfect, — speech and social ceremony. I real- 
ly feel relieved now. I was required by courtesy to enter- 
tain him, but, to be sure, not to entertain his matrimonial 
advances. I never felt that a union with him (notice I 
use individual pronouns) would bring me into the matri- 
monial Beulah land. He forced himself on me.” 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


367 


“I think love matches, coupled with good sound sense, 
can’t be very far from the God design in the beginning 
with our Edenic parents.” 

“It is never diplomatic, I think, for a girl to say it must 
be this one or none, whatever she may think, so long as she 
is denied seeking for her ‘soul-mate’ but must await a se- 
lection by him. One sided. This is why girls make them- 
selves fashion-attractive and clothes-peacockish, so as to 
win notice and choice. It’s all they can do.” Mina 
thought this. 

“I see no reason why they should not do this,” said Mrs. 
Wadsworth. 

“I did not intend to convey that sense, mamma, but sim- 
ply to state a reason for it.” 

“I do not think any one is limited to one and only one 
complement in all the world. No doubt there are a hun- 
dred, may be many more who would be perfectly adapted 
to the inherited and conventional responses of one’s being. 
For many people are as near soul-similar as they are per- 
son-similar. True, there may be one somewhere who 
more nearly fits one’s nature than another.” 

“I have long wondered, mamma, whether a one-sided 
love, a love excited on the one hand but not responded to 
on the other, is indeed genuine.” 

“I think not, Mina. It seems to me to be based on a 
few elements in the unresponsive one that are suitable, 
while the rest or other qualities are not suitable. The un- 
loved one has some elements that perhaps repel the love 
pole of the other.” 

“An education is not a safe guarantee of wedded bliss,” 
said Mina. 


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APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“No. That is an acquired thing, and not an innate, 
resident, eternal quality, a quality which of course appeals 
strongest to the essence or being of the other. It is not 
the acquisitions that take the initiative in winning the at- 
tention and fancy and love of the other.” 

“These are matters, it seems to me, that parents should 
not command or enforce upon their children, and should 
never more than advise and wisely direct.” Mina was in 
earnest. 

“And I think unselfish, loving, dutiful parents never do 
meddle in the love affairs of their children, whose future 
welfare they have at heart.” 

They had walked the whole length of the Avenue, had 
seen nothing, no one, nor done any shopping, — so absorbed 
were they in the conversation. 

No mention direct had been made of Prof. P. Thomas 
Nelson, but both had him in mind. They were perfectly 
conscious that his name had not been mentioned, and each 
took this as a significant fact deep in the mind of the other. 
In the minds and hearts of these two men there is a great 
gulf, like that between Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom and 
Dives, between decayed titular aristocracy and mental 
aristocracy. In this day of easy divorce and the Salome 
dance, many seem to have become marriage-mad, and the 
press teems with divorce scandals and unhappy marriages 
in high life, and the public really wonders whether mar- 
riage is a failure and whether God did not make a mistake 
in making male and female, — “in his own image.” In a 
few years that hideous old gossip, curiosity-stricken slan- 
derer, and ruthless thing, a “judicial” court, drags forth a 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


369 


ghastly family skeleton into public light, exposing an un- 
holy, diabolical sexual union. 

To say truth, this was a stone that Miss Mina Wads- 
worth was not going to stumble over. Anything else but 
a misogymist, nevertheless she was not seeking matrimony 
with any doubts or risks in it. She felt disgraced, humili- 
ated over this affair, and the very air seemed heavier than 
usual. That he could proceed so far and compromise her 
good name, drag it in the slime with his, — who would 
not repudiate such a wretch. “O, the crime of his decep- 
tion!” she cried in her heart in tears. His wooing never 
had the clear ring of seriousness in it; she never was de- 
ceived by his cold, correct words; she never was in love 
with him ; she did not know why she allowed him to pro- 
ceed with his wooing, when there was never the remotest 
feeling in her heart that she would answer him affirma- 
tively. And she never suspected there ever would be. It 
was her boast that she was “heart whole and fancy free,” 
and now what would the public think of her, a feather- 
weight girl, put upon by a low-cunning English Earl. 
This thought took a morally dramatic intensity in her 
mind. 

It was indeed fortunate that she had not been longer 
under the snakey spell of the man, who was as bloodless 
as the morally dead, as cruel as Agamemnon who would 
sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease Artemis, as sel- 
fish as the most extremely brutal man that ever dwelt on 
the earth. O she had many — every — reason to be glad she 
had been delivered from the toils of this moral villain. 
“I must have been hypnotized. Telepathy tells me he is 
a Svengali and I a Trilby.” Her general attitude all 


3 70 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


along toward him was that of flattered and flattering in- 
difference, and not repulsion or reception. It was but a 
passing matter, all told; but he had designedly impressed 
the public another way, and this was all in his favor and 
quite to the girl’s harm. 

The Professor’s letter was a genuine, clean-cut bit of 
pleasure, a ray of real bright sunlight through her dark, 
cloudy sky. She had grown reticent and retiring, in shame 
of it all. The letter was a great uplift, like a bit of good 
news to one long absent from home without a word. 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


T HE uttermost ends of the earth were being 
searched for Nero Pensive, and as yet he 
seemed to have been swallowed up, in the 
sea. He was a criminal, and a fugitive from 
justice. The badge-distinguished minions of 
the law were busy as small people generally can be. But 
they dredged and drag-netted the earth in vain. 

Peter Wilkins and Clever Hesperus, stimulated by the 
character and nature of the case and the prominence of 
the people in it, were turning heaven and earth over with 
something more effective than Archimedes’ imaginary lev- 
er, — electricity, — and the villain was still at large. Nero 
seemed to have made his exit from earth, and sunk into 
silence in some unknown, unmarked grave. However, 
these attorneys well knew that dogged persistence is the 
way to luck and success. It was hardly necessary to in- 
form Scotland Yard of him, for he would give these 
sleuths and petty Nick Carters a wide berth, to be sure. 
Still no stone must be left unturned. He must — be — 
found ! 

They asked Prof. P. Thomas Nelson what he had dis- 
covered, and he wrote substantially what Mith Gulliver 
had already related about him and his family. He was 
not the entailed heir, therefore titleless. The real heir 
was then in Parliament. The family was highly reputed, 
and stood in the rank of the best English people. But this 
371 


24 


372 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


fellow, Nero, was the blacksheep and had been abandoned 
by the honorable members of the family to the destiny he 
was carving out for himself. They had no idea he would 
weather very long the storm he was raising upon himself 
by his masterly course of social perversity. A man’s sins 
find him out; and so does his destiny. 

The facts obtained in Europe only intensified the im- 
moral, criminal life of the degenerate. The imposition he 
had practiced upon ex-Senator Wadsworth and his daugh- 
ter excited the ex-Senator to a wrathful tension that would 
know no defeat in uncovering the rascal. He should 
not go as free as the murderer of Snell years before in 
Chicago, or Schnauble, the real bomb-thrower in the 
anarchist movement in Chicago in 1886, or Eugene Aram. 
Unless he was buried in the bottom of the sea like Mc- 
Ginty, they would unearth him, and he should have the 
wrath of Justice laid on him. The ex-Senator was not 
a man to stand for any such foolishness as he had prac- 
ticed on his family. 

The Thaw- White tragedy had been a nine-days’ won- 
der, and the people in Washington City were saying that 
wonders never cease. The outrageous assault upon the 
two harmless, defenceless girls by four nervy (?) men 
was a “joke” for Peter Wilkins. 

As the search for the missing man proceeded, more 
and more facts about the family cropped out, just as 
such things usually do. 

It was said, among other things, that far back in the 
annals of the family, even in the traditional period of its 
history, some one of the family of Romanies had pro- 
nounced a curse on the race of Pensives for some gross 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


373 


injustice done these vagrant people by the lordly Pen- 
sives. Tradition says this Romany drew blood from his 
veins, wrote the curse on paper with his life ichor, de- 
claring that every generation of the Pensives should have 
a vagabond member who would disgrace the name. The 
cause of the ire of the Romany was his arrest and false 
imprisonment under the charge of being a thief and a 
vagabond. The proud-souled Romany would not lie 
down under the charge peaceably, and he told the lordly 
presence that he should neither thrive nor advance in 
honors and that his years should be less than the time 
allotted man, — that success did not always perch upon 
one and the same banner nor defeat croak over the 
other. In some part of the earth for all time to come 
his seed should be scattered in disgrace and his name 
bandied around in dishonor. Many times should the 
family be brought to its knees, perform genuflexions, not 
by the ecstasies of love or joy or the consolations of re- 
ligion, but in humiliation and disgrace. This prophecy, 
or curse has been literally fulfilled, so said, in every 
generation of the Pensives. 

In the capital of New Caledonia a few years ago, the 
French guillotined one of their convicts. This island was 
the most important of the French penal colonies. Many 
of the convicts were assembled in chains to witness the 
execution of a condemned prisoner, a ruffian, a “tough 
citizen.” The poor wretches felt the terrors of the oc- 
casion. They knew the guilty fellow deserved beheading, 
but they were not brought there merely to be able to 
testify to the justness and masterfulness of the execution, 
but to be terrorized into docility and obedience. The 


374 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


little procession, consisting of the man about to die, the 
executioners, the priest, and a few of the prison at- 
tendants, appeared moving in slow and solemn step, the 
very tread accented with death. When the sharp com- 
mand rang out, “Convicts, on your knees! Doff your 
hats!” the warders drew their revolvers and the troops 
leveled their pieces. Every convict fell upon his knees. 
Not to do so would be lese majeste, punishable by death. 
It was a strong scene, impressive, exciting, decisive. The 
condemned man asked leave to say a few words, moved 
by the desire to lengthen out his life even a few miser- 
able minutes, and so he talked and talked at a rambling 
gait, merely to delay himself a precious moment on the 
shores of time, — this side of eternity. This fact became 
perceptible in a few minutes, and the deputy governor, 
stage-master of the scene before the final drop of the cur- 
tain, signaled for the drums to beat and drown his voice. 
Then he was seized, strapped down to the guillotine 
board, and the merciless knife tripped. The decapitated 
body was put into a basket, his head held aloft by one 
of the ears for a moment and then cast also into the 
basket, and the execution was over, and law retired 
satisfied with justice that exacted life and took it. The 
law had sent a guilty Pensive, Nero’s uncle, into life 
everlasting, with the idea that equal and exact justice 
to all alike demanded it. The Gypsy’s prophecy, written 
in blood, was vividly recalled by the family dwelling 
quietly on the entailed estate in England. And now 
here was another one guilty of escapades, to speak of 
them mildly, or misdemeanors, that enmeshed him in 
the toils of the law. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


375 


Tracing the history of this family Peter Wilkins and 
Clever Hesperus, a very valuable and persistent man in 
this sort of work, resurrected some things that look 
freakish. One son married an extremely pretty young 
girl out of the Gaiety theatre company, and then an- 
other son, an organ-grinder, thought the descent in the 
family into the depths of piquant lowness and sharp dis- 
grace justified him in asking the courts to restore the 
title of Viscount to him, the organ-grinder. He was not 
sustained in his claim by the courts. 

One in Italy committed a horrible crime. He was 
very poor, but his sweetheart was willing he should 
seek a fortune in America before they married. In the 
jealousy of his heart and the tyranny of his love he swore 
his lovely Italian sweetheart to eternal constancy in his 
absence. Then they parted for an indefinite time, not 
to exceed ten years. For five years they corresponded 
with faithful regularity, and then her letters grew to 
longer intervals and finally ceased. Then he determined 
to return to Italy and find out the reason for the un- 
accountable cessation of the letters. She might be dead. 
She could not be unfaithful, for she had pledged her 
fealty to him by solemn oath. Just as he was on the 
point of returning he learned that she had married. 
Then his love turned to hate, and then to madness. He 
reached Italy, and passing himself as an itinerant dentist 
secured some dental work from his former sweetheart. 
While pretending to operate on her teeth, he cruelly, 
madly, exultantly tore out her tongue. It was an aw- 
ful deed. The poor young, innocent wife died. Then 
some citizens, maddened at the crime, — crime was not 


376 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


strong enough word, — caught the brutal savage, tied him 
to the heels of a furious horse, not entirely unlike Ma- 
zeppa, or Hector to the car of Achilles, or the defender 
of Gaza to the chariot of Alexander, and lashed the wild 
animal it the start into its highest speed. He was dragged 
at a runaway pace for more than two miles. Not a 
bone of his body was whole. 

As Peter Wilkins said in his characteristic manner, — 
“this settled both tongues and both hearts.” Many events 
were brought to light relative to the untitled members of 
this Pensive race that were certainly very shocking, 
showing either a perversity of disposition or a cursed des- 
tiny. The other section of the family bearing the title and 
the honors, the inheritor of the large estate, had main- 
tained itself in tact, and if it had not advanced, had not de- 
clined. 

One of the landless sons married by proxy, disgraced 
himself, and deserted his spouse and his country. 

The erstwhile friends, — or victims, — of Nero Pensive 
heard through a press dispatch, some time afterward, that 
the “Earl” had a meteoric career in South America, where 
he left a dizzy trail of forged checks, bad debts, “touch- 
ing” his friends as he could, and dashing career as “Earl.” 
He married a wealthy Spanish heiress in the Argentine 
Republic, robbed her as far as he could, and then aband- 
oned her in less than two months. His education, his pol- 
ish, his cleverness, his audacity were passports into good 
society everywhere. He concocted any sort of story about 
his family greatness and himself, and won his way on fam- 
ily laurels never performed. He had a “swell”automobile, 
lived a touch of fancy with his lovely, duped young bride; 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


377 


and suddenly vanished, as if translated to Avernus as 
Elijah was to heaven. 

A cablegram from Peter Wilkins to the authorities in 
Bonos Ayres to arrest him was the tip that practically di- 
vorced the Spanish senora and sent her frail hubby flying 
to the uttermost ends of the earth. But the two young, 
assiduous lawyers had not given over the chase. They 
declared with considerable animation that they would pur- 
sue him even to his hole in the earth. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


C LARISSA HARLOW, Alice, and Mina were 
at length admitted at the hospital to see 
Dean McBarron. So desperate was his con- 
dition understood to be, that they entered 
his room with hushed tread. But yet they 
knew him now to have passed the critical point and on the 
road to speedy recovery. 

Indeed he was greatly pleased to see them. He, from 
his couch, greeted them as sunnily, as if he were the one 
conferring sunshine instead of needing and receiving it. 
Their coming greatly restocked his always abundant sup- 
ply of optimism. He was so constituted that he saw light 
where others saw shadows, saw gold where others saw 
fool’s gold, saw love where others saw hate. The truth 
is that all things go in pairs, the one the opposite or re- 
verse of the other. In the order of creation things can’t 
exist otherwise. 

He received the news with alert intellect that Nero 
Pensive had made good his escape, though Peter Wilkins 
and Clever Hesperus were prying open every secret crevice 
of the earth to find him. He expressed the hope that they 
might yet overtake him, and his visitors echoed his hope. 
Their coming had inspired him with a new reason for sur- 
viving his dangerous wound, for now he desired to lend a 
hand in ferreting out this corrupt, obdurate, polluted, 
base degenerate. 


378 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


379 


It was not long until he was released from the hospital, 
and he proceeded forthwith to the open-doored home of 
Ex-Senator Wadsworth, where he was royally welcomed. 

It was a sunny, golden day in September, and the very 
air so balmy and dreamy smote the cheeks like angels’ car- 
esses. Dean had been in the hospital a long time, and 
summer had apparently come to a point where melancholy 
lingered about her in mere hints as yet, or perhaps, better, 
where everything suggested prophesies of the near future 
weather. But it was a joy, like a fresh young dream, to 
Dean to be alive and once more out in the midst of the 
thrilling living throng. 

He was welcomed at the Wadsworth home by three 
young ladies and Mrs. Wadsworth in a manner that made 
him feel that all people are not fickle in friendship. They 
sat under the shade of the stately tree in the yard, and 
there Dean revealed his life, being solicited to do so, and 
also feeling it now his duty to disclose himself to his 
friends. 

When Clarissa was a songstress of international repute, 
Dean met her. There was mutual interest at once aroused 
between them, and their acquaintance widened into love. 
Lord Francis Deepdown had divorced his wife, and was 
annoying Clarissa with his gallantry imposed upon her. 
He even offered her his wife’s diamonds said to be worth 
$100,000. The ex-wife, a vivacious and certanly a very 
striking woman in figure and face, made a world-around 
trip with a French count after her divorce. She was said 
to be a “charmingly spoiled girl,” a “soft, velvety, sweet- 
caressing girl-wife,” but she was a violently jealous- 
hearted woman, and peace is never present where the 


38 o 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“green-eyed monster” rules like a Richard III. And jeal- 
ousy needs no proof. Once enthroned, it is guilty of sins 
that a deluge could not wash away. 

She followed her husband. One day she entered the ho- 
tel rotunda in London and confronted her husband who 
had intercepted Clarissa and was holding brief, nervous 
converse with her. Dean was standing near, conversing 
for a brief moment with Clarissa. The mad wife ap- 
proached the husband, called him an unprintable name, 
aroused herself to fury, flashed a revolver on him, and 
fired. The ball missed its aim, but hit Dean. He fell. 
The would-be murderess flung down the revolver, 
screamed, and fled. 

“Here is the evidence of her marksmanship,” Dean 
pointed out, brushing aside the hair at his temple and 
showing a bullet scar. 

The wound was not as serious as at first imagined, and 
he was soon again frequenting his normal haunts. 

The guilty wife of Lord Deepdown disappeared, and 
her repudiated spouse and Lord refused to pursue her. 
This scandal and assault in a public place was so recited in 
the public press that the reading public was astonished 
and aroused. 

It was now that Dean and Clarissa learned that Nero 
Pensive was in America, and Clarissa followed him. The 
reader is conversant with their lives somewhat in detail 
since their arrival in the United States, their own native 
country. 

What Mith Gulliver said of Dean had no foundation in 
fact, except that Dean imposed a long imaginary tale up- 
on him one idle hour. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


D EAN’S life reminiscences, told with original 
spice and humorous conclusions, at much 
more length than appears here, were list- 
ened to with much delight, and laughter 
was loud when he depicted the ludicrous 
situations with much larger and more pointed force than 
the Pickwickian delineator would perhaps have done it, 
and perhaps with less breadth of humor than would the 
chronicler of Roughing It and Gilded Age. 

He at length returned to his very early boyhood days, 
and said: 

“I’d give a fortune, if I could unearth one little sister 
I met long, long ago, when she was less than five and I 
about eight. She wouldn’t flinch from fire, and was as 
brave as leal.” 

“Where did you meet her?” asked Alice thoroughly in- 
terested. 

“In South Dakota.” 

“Was she pretty?” asked Clarissa with a laughing 
shrug. 

“Cheeks like the peach blossom, eyes like the ashy sky, 
hair like silk woof, lissome as the bouyant boughs that sway 
gracefully in the summer wind, lovely as an angel, brave 
as the greatest hero in your family present or past, play- 
ful as a kitten, laughter that gurgled like music confined, 
the sweetest little hoyden that ever ran a race with a 

38i 


382 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


boy. Such she is as I remember her. She may be dead.” 

“What a splendid tribute!” cried Mina joyfully. 

“You have thought of her often,” said Mrs. Wads- 
worth, implying that much and often thinking had drawn 
her portrait in his mind in the glittering touches of imagi- 
nation, and hung up a noble painting in the corridors of 
his memory. 

“She’s a beautiful child dream,” he returned lovingly. 

“What so stamped her upon your mind?” asked Claris- 
sa, as one merely encouraging him to give details. 

“May I tell the story, after all I have just said about 
myself?” 

“That’s what we’re all trying to draw out of you,” said 
two at once. 

“It’s personal. It’s not so ancient that I need to begin 
with the stereotyped beginning of the building of bird’s 
nests in old men’s beards, nor end with the kettle of tea. 
It was, however, about two decades ago, in the ‘wild, 
woolly west.’ Out there they called my father ‘ Chuck' 
McBarron. He was a good cowpuncher, and managed 
to make a living rounding up cattle for himself and me, 
his only child. My mother was dead, and my first days 
were days of strain and stress and hardship. When the 
annual round-ups were over, my father trapped some and 
helped out with carrying the government mail. 

“One season Harry Dickson asked my father to help 
him round-up his cattle on the range, and my father liking 
and needing the employment put on his sombrero, took his 
quirt, bounced upon a pony of mercurial turn, and went 
on with the rest of the cowpunchers to bring the cattle to 
a corral. Dickson was rich as cream, but he didn’t know 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


383 


it, and so might as well not have been rich at all. He had 
a family that were unblessed with unknown opportunities 
within their reach. But his little niece, she whom I have 
just described, was there from the east with her mamma 
visiting. While the cattle were being branded she and 
I became playmates and watched the branding, a strange 
new thing to both of us. She was a wilful little soul, 
with curly brown hair, dark brown eyes that scintillated in 
the darkness, and she was a fairy despot ruling her kind 
mother. The cattle were roped, thrown down, and I 
remember the brand, which was a tiny heart. The red- 
hot iron burnt and sizzled, when pressed on the shoulder 
of the bellowing cattle. We watched the operation with 
bulging eyes and excited hearts, for it was cruelty to ani- 
mals. At a moment when the branding-iron was not in 
use and the men had gone off a short distance for some 
purpose that I do not recall now, this little brave girl 
turned suddenly to me, and frankly said: 

“ ‘I like you. Let me brand you.’ 

“ Tm afraid it will hurt,’ I said like a coward. 

“ ‘Don’t be a big ’fraid cat. Come on,’ she sneered 
and took hold of me. 

“‘Oak-eh! No! It’ll burn,’ and I shrank back. 

“ ‘No-h it won’t. I ain’t afraid,’ she said. And so 
she pleaded, and so I demurred. Of course it was the 
same old story of the Syren — the boy finally yielded. 
She snatched up the hot brand, I exposed my bare 
shoulder, and she dabbed the hot iron and pressed a 
tiny heart on my shoulder, — her uncle’s brand. And I’m 
one of his strays to-day.” 

“Is the heart there yet?” asked Clarissa. 


384 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


Dean McBarron shifted his feet and hands, and looked 
up in the deep foliage overhead. Mina walked round 
to another seat. Alice had been pacing up and down an 
imaginary line upon the grass. Mrs. Wadsworth sat 
with eyes fixed upon the monologist, absorbed in his 
rather unusual tale. 

“Aye, indeed is it, and a proud mark too it is. That 
blistering iron hurt, to be sure, and the tears leaped up. 
But I tried hard not to wince, but to be brave for the 
little darling’s sake. I gritted my teeth, and she marked 
me without a tremor. Then she said, so like one with a 
superior soul, ‘You weren’t afeerd a tal,’ and she patted 
the seared brown heart that fairly glowed. I said : 

‘ ’Course I wasn’t’ choking back the big tears. It was 
over, and then I was brave enough, you see. We are 
all alike, I think sometimes. I could hardly keep back 
the truant, errant, wilful, confessing tears. I snapped 
them off my lids, and tried to laugh, as if I thought it 
a rich joke. Then she ran in front of me, held the hot 
iron out, and commanded: ‘Now you brand me. Put 
one on me. We must be alike.’ ‘O gracious no!’ I 
fairly gasped, or ought to if I did not. ‘No. Why I 
couldn’t do that. It would hurt you. Burn!’ ‘It 
wouldn’t hurt any more than it did you. An’ you’re 
no better than I am. If you can stand it, guess I can 
too. An’ I want one, too. An’ I’m goin’ to have it.’ 
‘But — ‘Here, quick now.’ There was no help for it. 
Her little white shoulder was bared for the sacrifice, 
as it seemed, and I stuck the tiny heart upon her shoulder, 
the same as mine, the left one. She gritted her teeth, 
set her lips tight, and bore the burn without a whimper. 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


385 


‘Now you’ve got one too,’ said I. ‘We won’t tell what 
we’ve done,’ she said in a tone that meant a secret. The 
tears budded upon her lids and fell off, but she did not 
ouch. ‘No, I guess we won’t,’ I said, knowing well 
what I’d get if we did. And I acknowledge I always 
had a wholsesome dread of hickory oil. It left such a 
bad taste in my mouth. 

“The branding of the cattle was finished next day, 
and then my father took me away back to our cabin on 
the plains. That very same night a prairie fire sprang 
up, swept all before it, and our humble home perished, 
and the prairie was an ashen, blackened desert. And 
then we drifted or blew into the Black Hills, settled 
there, and the years rolled on into the illimitable hades 
of the dead — dead — past! And I never heard of the 
sweet, brave little girl again. My father became a mine 
prospector, took up some claims, and before he died be- 
came immensely rich. I inherited his pelf; but it was 
not satisfactory. It held very much less than all of life 
for me. So I drifted east, a young man of eighteen, en- 
tered a literary college, was graduated, studied law, but 
never practiced it, and by that time discovered that some 
longing emotions for real friends were mine, and that 
I had some ugly desires to rove.” 

“What was the little girl’s name?” asked Clarissa in 
the most natural way possible. 

“Really I can’t tell you,” he laughed. “She was a 
tiny thing, a prairie flower, seen only for a few days, and 
I a mere boy, and so if I ever knew her name I’ve long 
ago forgotten it. But the little incident of our branding 
each other has never been out of my mind.” 


386 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Why don’t you advertise for her?” suggested Mina. 
“It would be indeed romantic to find your little western 
sweetheart that way. I should be happy to see the out' 
come of all this.” 

“She may be dead,” suggested Clarissa; or a famous 
beauty about to marry some foreigner as cashless as his 
title is empty.” 

“O,” cried Alice, clapping her hands and whirling on 
toes till her skirts flared in bell-hape, “O, how touch- 
ing! But sure, now, I’m not sneering. I was thinking 
of her possible life since, and trying to construct it in 
my mind. Now, what was her life? I’ll bet I can de- 
pict it to a dot.” And she laughed. 

“That belongs to Mina. She writes novels,” said 
Clarissa. 

“Naturally,” assented Dean. 

“But I’ve no idea, and Alice has,” said Mina, a 
declension in her tone. 

“Go on, Alice,” cried Mrs. Wadsworth. “Tell us 
her life. We’ll take it for granted, as you tell it, that it 
will be as wild and tense as any Bret Harte story.” 

“To begin with then,” and Alice made an elaborate 
movement of lips and frisky quaver of eyes, as if she were 
hyperbolically serious. “She grew, and she grew, and 
she grew, — not unlike the fabled turnip, — and she grew 
into a charming girl. And no doubt she was much like 
the Sleeping Beauty waiting for the Prince Charming to 
come along and carry her off, something in the fashion 
the Highland Chieftain did Lord Ullin’s daughter, or 
as young Lochinvar did his bride. She had a doting 
father who granted her every wish. He educated her in 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


387 


our eastern colleges. She could ride a la cowboy, and 
shoot the center nine times in ten as she galloped past the 
target, and fish like old Walton himself, and at the 
same time bake a cake with the best of them. And 
she could dress, — my, she could outshine the fabled beaut- 
ies of courts! She had all the graces, the perfect beauty, 
and the sweetness of one of the most lovely women on 
earth. Men fairly bowed down and worshipped her, 
and her beauty became the type and the vogue. She was 
the leading belle of society, and the ladies were all madly 
jealous of her. And when women become furiously 
jealous of another woman, they make, or can make, it 
most unlovely for her. She traveled in the Old World, 
met all the famous court beauties, was admired by Kings 
but not by queens, and had in her train all the men 
with love-trained eyes and skilled judgment of beautiful 
women. And as a conclusion of her splendid social career 
she married a count.” 

“A Cuvier,” suggested Dean, complimenting her re- 
construction of the character from a mere hint. 

“A beautiful fancy,” said Mina. 

“But not true,” said Clarissa. 

“We’ll say it is a true fable by way of compromise,” 
said the very gracious Mrs. Wadsworth. 

“I can see,” said Alice, “that here was my opportunity 
for a little humor, a little invention, a little grace, a 
little literary accomplishment; but I signally failed — 
failed as heavily as the fall of lead.” 

“Not so wretchedly as that,” said Mina, with an eye 
crinkled half shut to express a humor that her words 
could not. 


25 


3*8 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


“Yes. But I only regret the infliction on you of such 
dead, wooden stuff, and do not regard myself. I can 
stand all you may think, and know that you are too 
polite to tell all you think.” Alice jumped up and down 
on her toes several times because she could not help it, 
or because she had not even paused to notice just what 
she was doing. 

All the while Clarissa used the graphite with studied 
industry, and now she read what she had written as an 
advertisement. It ran: 

“If the young man who branded a tiny heart on the 
left arm of his little girl playmate twenty years ago, 
while upon a western ranch, and who wears a similar 
sign on his own arm, will write to C. H., Washington 
City, he will learn something of great interest to him- 
self.” 

“That’s an ad.,” laughed Clarissa, turning archly 
toward Dean, while a singular light gleamed in her dusky 
eyes. 

“But this is an ad, for you , and not for Dean,” Alice 
hastily interposed. 

“Well,” said Clarissa. 

“But then it is nothing to you.” 

“Well,” said Clarissa. 

“Why did you write it that way?” 

“Because I wanted the lad that branded me twenty 
years ago on my uncle Dickson’s ranch in the wild, woolly 
west.” 

Every eye was bent upon her, and no words can ex- 
press the exact status of feeling and eye-glisten. Dean — 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 389 

well he looked like a man who had leaped over a precipice 
and was still falling through the air. 

“You!” said Dean more like a sharp cry of surprise 
than of inquiry. 

“Yes, I’m the kid you branded,” said Clarissa. 

“No. I’m from Missouri,” said Dean in the parlance 
of the hour, slang ever young to the young, ever old to the 
old, ever the same to Him who created time itself. 

Clarissa, taking him at his word, hastily, bared her 
shoulder, and invited him to look, if he was from Mis- 
souri. There was in very truth a distinct tiny heart burnt 
and cicatrized in her tender white shoulder. Then Dean 
seized her impetuously, imprinted a kiss fervently upon her 
rubric lips, and pressed her like a sister to his heart. And 
Clarissa fully reciprocated the caresses. It was like the 
meeting of long lost brother and sister. All congratulated 
them, and felt indeed that they were real participants in a 
real romance. Dean himself doubted himself, and did not 
know for a few moments whether he were happy or un- 
happy. Even matronly good Mrs. Wadsworth kissed 
Clarissa and then kissed Dean, so far had the combined 
emotion gone recklessly aside from the standard code of 
exhibiting feelings. She congratulated them on their 
“good fortune,” and shook their hands with a film of wat- 
er over her eyes that fairly blinded her. Alice — she prac- 
tically danced the grass off the sward in her ecstacy. Mina 
was not quite so freakish emotionally, and with decent 
composure she congratulated them. 

On the first lull in the stormy demonstration Dean ex- 
posed the brand of a tiny heart on his left shoulder, and 


390 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


all proof needed to establish the verity of the tale was 
thus added. 

“And now,” said Dean an hour later, “it deepens on me 
that it was fate that directed me to you in London not 
long since.” 

“Was mine the little girl’s name?” she asked. 

“Yes, that was it, I now recall.” 

“And neither then knew, nor afterward, that the hand 
of destiny was over us,” said Clarissa. 

“And when we repudiate destiny and go our own way, 
the result is a failure every time,” Dean speculated. 

“I know marriage then is a failure,” said Clarissa. 

“Are you now assured of your true destiny?” Dean 
asked as a matter of course. 

1 m sure. 

Dean put his hand up to the tender scar upon his neck. 
The bandage felt a little constricting. 


CHAPTER XL 


O F course Dean McBarron entered into the 
prosecution of the criminals with all the 
zeal of a novice, and with all the serious- 
ness of one who would be avenged for in- 
juries received. He became associate coun- 
sel with Peter Wilkins and Clever Hesperus. 

The three men immured for the assault on Clarissa and 
Alice in “The Cottage” were found guilty, and sentenced 
to an indeterminate term in prison. When the prisoners 
were led away to be sent to confinement, Clever Hesperus, 
looking at the poor dogs, said : 

“It seems like a needless waste of life, if it is not in- 
appropriate here to philosophize a bit, to force these men 
into straits out of the great current of humanity in which 
all good is best done, and leave society the loser by so much 
as they might have done as good citizens.” 

“The possibility of being a useful citizen, I think,” said 
Peter Wilkins, tossing away a broken and unlighted cigar 
that he had held in his mouth some time, “is given to every 
man in the start, but he warps in the growth and drifts 
into evil, and that continually, after his nature has received 
its growth and become fixed and hardened and unalterable 
by time. Then it is that he is everlastingly established 
that way by fate. The nature was given him at first to 
fix, settle, determine his career as a good citizen or a bad. 
391 


392 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


The possibilities were his in the start, and destiny had 
decreed that he must be one or the other.” 

“So many of us spoil life and make it a comedy of er- 
rors,” said Dean McBarron, as the trio went out of the 
court-house at the end of the trial. They became mute 
for a moment. 

“I hear we have a trace of Nero Pensive,” said Peter, 
looking up at Dean. 

“Where is he?” quickly, significantly. 

“Not in hades but hesperus, — Manilla.” 

“Poor citizen there — a refugee,” said Dean. 

“I cabled for his arrest,” said Peter. 

“That man, sir, to be close in analysis, was a scamp of 
the first water, and won by his clever deceptions and his 
habitual fine manners,” said Clever Hesperus, a sort of 
Senator Beveridge stately space between words. 

This trio went to the Wilkins-Hesperus office, and re- 
sumed the consideration of the trial through which they 
had just passed victoriously. It is needless to follow the 
legal methods taken to establish the truth of Mith Gulli- 
ver’s confession ; suffice it to say once for all that the evi- 
dence convicted him and his pals and sent them to the pen- 
itentiary, as already stated. 

“That Mith Gulliver is the greatest Ananias since 
Ananias,” said Peter in his old style of humor. 


Mina was telling Clarissa and Alice the news she had 
from Olive Pendell. She said that Olive wrote that her 
old friend and ex-fiance, Lawrence Dunston, had asked 
her to sponge the unsavory record of him out of her mem- 
ory, and let him begin over again and make a new name 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


393 


and position for himself in her heart, and then he would 
ask her judgment upon him. He said to Olive that God 
forgave, and forgot, — blotted out, — the wrongs one did, 
provided he asked Him, — that was God’s requirement 
from man and was his law, — and he asked her to be chari- 
table with him and give him “another chance.” 

“Will she?” asked Alice. 

“It seems he hasn’t asked to be a suitor,” said Clarissa. 

“But that is what it practically amounts to, and so 
Olive understands it,” said Mina. 

“Then to let him come back as far as he asks is prac- 
tically to concede he may be a suitor again,” said Alice. 

They were on the afternoon veranda at the Wads- 
worth home, not a palace, not a mansion, not a castle, 
but a fine modern American home with every modern 
blessing. 

A cablegram to Mina from Prof. Nelson said he would 
be ready to leave England and return home on the next 
day. Mina read the message out to her mother and 
the two girls. 

Many had observed Mina’s latent habit of thought- 
less humming — anything — but chiefly the last ditty that 
she had sung. So at this moment she fell abstractedly 
into humming “Red Wing,” and Alice smiled at Clar- 
issa, conveying some interchange of thought unexpressed 
in vocalized thought-medium. Mina saw not this aside 
conference. And it wxmld have altered nothing if she 
had. 

It was a sweet satisfaction to Mrs. Wadsworth to 
notice the contentment of the two world-waifs and know 
her instrumentality had assisted to redeem them and 


394 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


give them happiness and a home, — a haven of refuge 
from the fury of the relentless world. It pleased her 
to see their punctiliousness in their conduct. They had 
needed parental protection and direction, and they were 
innately glad that they could rest in the true confidence 
and beautiful sympathy and kindly concern of this mother 
in whom there was no guile. They were acclimating 
themselves to the demands of a correct home, and they 
became perfectly dutiful and obedient and trustful and 
willing. 

It was Alice’s greatest wish that she should not be 
thought heartless. She declared she would never again 
commit an escapade that would bring the disgrace of 
a public newspaper notice and perhaps a cut with it. 
And she prayed Mrs. Wadsworth never to let those 
press quidnuncs say any more horrid things about her. 
Alice’s parents being dead, she had a great and dan- 
gerous wealth thrust upon her at an age when wealth 
most easily becomes one’s jugernaut. She wisely spent some 
of it in judicial personal charity upon the submerged tenth 
directed by her lovely patron mother. The girl had been 
indiscreet, she herself confessed with regret, but had never 
been guilty of any great moral or mortal wrong. She 
had been eccentric and highly willful, before she had set- 
tled into dignity of character, — the very worst that could 
be said of her. She was a lovely, good, talented, kind 
girl, and she won her place into another’s heart by sheer 
force of love given first. Her motives were right, but im- 
pulses wrong and over-developed and over-indulged and 
over-trained. 

Peter Wilkins knew all about the girl, knew well her 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


395 


father who was an eminent New York physician. He 
died suddenly on an ocean voyage, and not long afterward 
the mother died, leaving the girl rich and alone, the prey 
of every venal shark that heard of her. But she was a 
girl of great force of character, and she easily put the ad- 
venturers all behind her. That was one of her pet eccen- 
tricities, to “turn the wretches down.” 

She and Peter were knit together in fire-new, best- 
burnished friendship, and rumors of “intentions” were 
current. 

It was a disheveled October morning, and sullen as a 
dishonored citizen or a devil in mad drama, and Mina 
wondered how they would spend the day. 

They were again at their country home, Acadie, at Wal- 
pole. Clarissa and Alice and Mina and a chauffeur had 
been chasing over the country in a touring-car for many 
days, and for spice and relief from the bane of monotony 
eating a midday dinner in some town or village and re- 
turning home in the evening. The splendid ozone of Oc- 
tober put new blood and therefore new impulses in them, 
and tinged the cheeks a beautiful nutbrown. 

Now, on this unpromising October morning a letter 
came to Mina from Prof. Nelson saying he would be in 
Richmond on the morrow. Of course she knew he had 
arrived from England, and she also knew his first duty 
was to report to President Roosevelt. Hence he would 
not be able first to “pay his devoirs,” as the elite used to 
say, to the one woman of all women who occupied a chief 
place in his mind and heart. He was confident, knowing 
the possibility of mistaking, that she entertained no repul- 
sive opinion of him. But in this latter, mind-dissipating 


39& 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


day the instability of the sentiments of young people is 
marked, — a fact demonstrably shown by the divorce 
courts. However, he thought he could safely trust in the 
fidelity and loyalty and stability of sentiment of Miss 
Mina Wadsworth. 

After reading the letter from the Professor they engaged 
in a game of whist, still undecided what should be the 
chief ‘‘stunt” of the day, as Alice put it. Mina never 
had the courage to use slang. Mina stole listlessly, rest- 
lessly through the many rooms of this country residence, 
sitting like a gloomy bump in the gloom on the elevation. 
She looked out upon the mist and the soppy fields and 
woods beyond. There was a sinister look upon the gen- 
eral aspect of nature, and a wail, as it were a token of 
impending winter, came up the hill in silence and took 
mystic speech under the eves of the house. And all the 
folks at the home took notice that Mina was affected with 
a ‘‘tone of mind.” Alice said banteringly it was a “tone of 
heart” that would not mend till Dr. Cupid was called in. 

But the next morning was one with a golden sun peep- 
ing over the eastern horizon with a benignant smile and a 
bow of promise, as it were, for the day, declaring the day 
could not fail to be a blessing to a normal mind and heart. 

The Professor came as he said, and was met at the Wal- 
pole station by the three girls in a trap. The greeting of 
Mina by the Professor seemed to be no more direct, at- 
tentive, effusive, pointed, fervent than to the rest. And 
yet Mina read a gladness in his eyes that was not to be 
seen by any one, except on whom the occulist Cupid had 
put his highly colored “specs,” very like those Major Jack 
Downing mentioned as used by President Jackson when 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


397 


he wished to see things in a self-flattering condition. Alice 
was particularly careful to seem not to be “seeing things,” 
and yet most acutely attentive spying their acts, looks, 
words and special and singular movements, at this first 
meeting. She confessed to herself that she was disap- 
pointed in that she observed nothing. A scansorial bird 
hammered the telegraph pole near where Alice stood fur- 
tively looking, yet not looking, and she looked up at the 
bird that had “butted in,” as it were. She shot a con- 
temptuous and rebuking glance at it. And then she re- 
gretted that there was a moment when she had taken 
away her eyes, for it is then that “things happen, when 
one isn’t looking, you know.” But the truth is she had 
seen all. 

Clarissa was not so sensitively conscious as to taking ob- 
servations as Alice was, and yet she looked clandestinely 
out of the corners of her eyes. But she saw nothing like 
a demonstrative love symptom. He was either a very shy 
and prudent wooer, or else he was not very ardent. Sly 
wooers are the best. But a heartless one is soon set aside. 
Lovers must be men of real flesh and blood, or they are 
not desirable. 

They got into the trap and returned to Acadie. The 
autumn had removed the color of all vegetation and the 
earth looked as if setting into a sombre winter overcoat. 
The beautiful flowers of the lawn had given up their mid- 
summer glory, and the cleamatis and the woodbine had the 
pallor of death upon them. The sad and disastrous had 
come as the heralds of winter, and the winds were already 
making needful the storm-doors. 

Of a poetic turn, the Professor spoke of the alteration of 


39 $ 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


the wonderful color of joyous nature, and of the sombre 
and drear and brown that were settling like a pall on all 
things. These changes spoke 

“Of wailing winds and naked woods, 

And meadows brown and sear.” 

At the home he greeted Mrs. Wadsworth with perfect 
gentlemanly dignity and attention, and she met him with 
a kindly smile that she gave to everybody. 

Time was no longer heavy on Mina’s hands, everybody 
noticed. She and the Professor had many private inter- 
views and many rambles in the touring-car with the other 
two girls added to their gay jaunts. 

It was an open secret that Prof. P. Thomas Nelson was 
on the point of delivering a new book to the printer, in 
which he had embodied some of the facts and conclusions 
he had gathered about English socialism while in England. 

Mina had already handed over her MS. to publishers, 
but she would tell none of her friends a single thing about 
the plot, saying that to do so would mar their interest in 
the story, and she flattered herself her friends would cer- 
tainly honor her by reading it. 

The truth is that Prof. Nelson was lionized by the 
girls, and petted as if deserving of everything and yet only 
received a pitiable fragment of it. He had been dragged 
about in the dust with the three girls in the “auto,” and 
viewed the gorgeous late autumn scenery, fairly surfeiting 
upon it, until familiarity had taken the first keen glow 
from it, and laughed with the “jolly crowd,” till life 
seemed connected again with boundless, hopeful, buoyant, 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


399 


glowing boyhood. All the tourists would come back in 
the evening gray “the worse for the wear,” Clarissa put it, 
dusty and barbarous in spirit, so rowdyish did the fine 
fresh air inoculate them with the Darwinian ancestral an- 
tecedent spirit. The Professor came to look “rusty,” he 
allowed, and added that “he appeared as one that had been 
dug up in the country and transplanted into the city, and 
was just beginning to take root in the new soil.” They all 
rejoiced in the soil, were glad a kind Providence had not 
interdicted them this privilege, and entertained a manly 
(there is no neuter or sac.hlich term), healthy uplift 
toward a beneficent Creator. 

One lovely Indian summer evening, in the last distinct 
rays of the setting sun, as a hush lay upon the subdued 
land and a poise and pause seemed to have come upon all 
animated nature, Mina and Prof. Nelson were strolling 
along the hedge, sentimental fashion, when the nerved-up 
Professor unequivocally “put the question direct,” the 
question of all questions that shapes immediate destinies 
and compels a hereditary destiny upon unborn generations, 
the most vital question that concerns mortal men. 

It is needless to repeat all they said. With possible 
variation in the inflection of tone and words, not the sen- 
timent, it was the same sweet emotion that possessed Adam 
and Eve. And has been repeated substantially to each 
other in the same way by every descendant of the primal 
citizens upon the earth. It was what our grandfathers 
and our parents whispered to each other in all confidence 
and in such all-glowing sweetness and hope and love. It 
was what you said when you proposed, and what will be 
said to you, young lady, when he proposes to you. It is 


400 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


the divine decree to love, declared in Genesis first chapter 
and twenty-eighth verse, and it was given to all animate 
nature as declared in the same chapter and twenty-second 
verse. Those that do not love, are violators of God’s law 
implanted in their being. 

The Professor had plucked a spray of dingy golden-rod, 
and Mina was repeating a sprightly incident that had been 
related to her one day recently when dining in a country 
hotel. A sweet little girl, about seven years of age, had 
often listened to her father declaim in animated language 
from the sacred desk. He was a tender father in his 
home, forgiving like Christ rather than like the austere 
Elohim-Jehovah. And the little thing loved her father 
with a trustfulness that might well be imitated in more 
homes than it is. One day she heard her father, in his 
clerical capacity, preach a fiery sermon on the “justice of 
God.” At the conclusion, shocked with the picture her 
father drew of the unapproachable King of Kings, she hid 
her face in her mother’s arm, and cried in fear: “O, mam- 
ma, I wish God were as good as papa!” Sweet little child! 
Don’t be terrorized. Your father in his home had ful- 
filled the idea of Christ, to suffer little children to come 
unto him, not to make them afraid but happy. The Pro- 
fessor seemed reticent, turgid, turbid, while in a listening 
attitude to this story, but when he spoke all this was 
changed and altogether in his favor. 

“And may I say unto you, long loved one, to come unto 
me, and let no one forbid?” He had turned square to her 
and paused in his slow walk, as if for an immediate an- 
swer. No, Mina was not indifferent when she plucked 
the faded golden-rod from his hands, and looked up in his 
eyes, and — . 


APOLOGIES FOR LOVE 


401 


He had his answer without words. She meant to speak, 
but somehow at the moment it seemed best to tell him 
without words, the most emphatic speech of all. And yet 
she said after a hesitancy that he did not misconstrue : 

“Frankness, not rudeness, is best always. You have 
known it long, — before you went to England even. There 
never was a moment when a telepathic motion of soul did 
not signify concord with your soul-essence. I’m not a 
fadist, I pray you understand, but one’s secret impressions 
are never wrong. I come unto you, not to be a burden 
through later developed repulsion of being, but a true help- 
meet always to the end.” 

“May God bless this compact,” said the Professor more 
to her than to God. 

And there behind the hedge, in the sweet eventide, they 
plighted their troth and affixed the seal of a pure, sweet 
first kiss. 


One word more. 

Nero Pensive perished in a street brawl in Manilla. 

His death released Clarissa and Alice, bequeathing ac- 
ceptable widowhood upon both at once. 

Dean McBarron and Clarissa Harlow married. Robert 
Burns never forsook Dean, and became interested in the 
Panama canal. 

Peter Wilkins and Alice Moore-Greenfield were mar- 
ried in due time. 

Clever Hesperus found and married a golden-haired, 
lovely young widow, named Mrs. Filter Gladden, who 
thought him the greatest constitutional lawyer in Wash- 
ington City. 









tlQV 29 1903 







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Q| V 


nvv 29 







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